LevyLogs
End of the Year Message
It’s that time again, the end of another cycle of days, weeks, and months that we call a year. I wish all of you the best possible New Year, and hope that this year was a productive one, or at least one where you each made progress toward personal goals.
As Winter closes in on us in Chicago, driving us indoors with its cold, short days, it is a good time to reflect on the year’s events, many of which happened outdoors. I had the good fortune to play about 90 concerts with The Flecktones this year and got to see many of you in my travels. Our caravan was a modern tour bus, and we were basically gypsies, going from place to place playing once and moving on.
Sitting here at home thinking about it, it is a blur of cities, festivals, faces, stages, pianos, cheering audiences, moments of silence, nights sleeping on the bus, and mornings waking up in hotel parking lots. As we traveled, the music demanded that we play our best every night. I tried to bring an attitude of spontaneity and creativity, along with precise technique, to each performance. It was a strain and a challenge that lifted me to higher levels of musicianship. It was also a lot of other things- deepening friendships and musical rapport with the guys, learning patience, how to pace myself and keep my own identity, staying focused on each show but working on other projects, staying closely connected with those I love, and planning for the future. Bela, Victor, Roy, and the whole crew are people who know how to live productively on the road. I learned a lot from their examples and grew a lot in the process as we traveled across the US and Canada.
I also got to play my own music in wonderful settings. I performed my concerto with the Hohner Harmonica Orchestra in Trossingen, Germany, and with The Lawrence University Orchestra in Wisconsin, premiered my suite “Recuerdos de Nueva Yorque” at Millenium Park with Chévere and friends, toured Russia, Poland, Germany, and Hungary with Chris Siebold, Israel with Alberto Mizrahi and Saffron Caravan, played the Jewish High Holidays with my son Miles (a joy to play with him), gave some solo concerts, and played as a guest at several Jazz Festivals. One constant in all of this has been maintaining and expanding The Howard Levy Harmonica School. We have several hundred members from all over the world and I am very proud of it.
Putting “Recuerdos” into performance form was a major task. I worked with trumpeter/arranger Victor Garcia, without whose help I couldn’t have done it, as I have no computer music notation skills. With his expertise in Finale and expertise in Latin percussion, I played all the parts into Finale with a USB keyboard and we edited and arranged it together. The Aug. 18 Millenium Park concert with Chevere and friends, Trio Globo, and Chris Siebold, was one of the greatest nights of my life. Thanks to the City of Chicago’s Cultural Affairs Dept, the great Millenium Park staff and the devotion of all of the musicians, the audience of 8,000 loved the music. I hope to do more concerts like this.
In my travels, I have come across some really interesting books. New Orleans especially is a place that always makes me feel different when I play there. I visited the Jean Lafitte Visitors’ Center and bought a fascinating book called “Creole” by Sibyl Kein. This book is a must- read for anyone interested in the musical and cultural history of America. I also got totally immersed in “The Orientalist”, an amazing non- fiction book by Tom Reiss, and had an interesting time reading Hazrat Inayat Khan’s “The Mysticism of Sound and Music”, which was given to me in Dallas by my old Evanston friend Jack Salamone.
Fox (my longtime girlfriend) and I saw a movie called “Young Goethe in Love”. It was a flawed but compelling movie, and it made me look into the complex life of this amazing man for the first time. We also saw Hershey Felder’s incredible one-man show about Leonard Bernstein, “Maestro”. This is a tour-de-force, a must-see. It was heavy for Fox to see this re-animation of a genius with whom she had several peak experiences playing music, and inspiring to me to witness Mr. Felder’s fantastic musicianship at the piano.
In some of my breaks from the road, I got to hear the Chicago Symphony play some amazing concerts in Chicago and at Carnegie Hall. I am always astounded by their precision, and in the best concerts, the emotional effect of the music is overwhelming, reminding me of the transcendent levels achieved by the greatest composers and instrumentalists. The orchestra is a treasure that the city of Chicago tends to take for granted- they set the bar very high for me in my quest for musical excellence. The fact that Fox has been a member of this group for 30+ years gives me additional insights into its workings. It is a musical tribe whose members must meet the most exacting standards day after day while playing under many different conductors in just about every style of music composed over a span of more than 300 years.
Also, thanks to youtube, I have seen footage of some of my Jazz heroes that I never would have seen otherwise. Particular standouts were Cannonball Adderly playing at Montreux in 1973 (wow), Coltrane and the quartet playing “I Want to Talk About You” in Sweden in 1962 (pure genius), the always inspired Errol Garner playing “Misty”, Duke and the Orchestra playing “Satin Doll” (!), and others- the Cuban group Orq. Ritmo Oriental from 1981 playing “Cuidado con la percussion”- incredible. There is also great website called “Jazz on the Tube” that you should check out.
I saw my daughter Stephanie and her husband Roland twice- once by visiting their home in Perth, Australia, and the second time when they visited us here in Chicago. It is always wonderful to see them. I also got to see my sister and her family in Atlanta. Burt’s video post – production business is thriving, and Regina’s ceramic art gets more amazing every year. http://tucker.patch.com/articles/fusing-function-with-nature
I got to see my parents several times in Florida and Chicago. They continue to be youthful and vigorous, living every minute to its fullest as they defy conventional perceptions of aging. At 85, my mother works regularly as a counselor, and my father continues to fence and sing recitals at 88…
So, onward and upward for all of us in 2012. In spite of the difficulties in the world, I remain optimistic about the future. If we as individuals to try to live up to our highest personal standards, the world will be a better place.
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