Jazz master forges through pandemic
Howard Levy releases an apropos improvised album
Everyone in jazz knows that ChicagoanHoward Levy commands a global reputation as a harmonica virtuoso.
Fewer realize that he’s also an uncommonly fluid jazz pianist. But even those familiar with his pianism may be surprised by “Looking Inward,” his new album of solo piano improvisations born of the pandemic.
“Whatwas going on with the pandemic influenced theway I played— I felt really isolated and scared about whatwas going on,” says Levy, who recorded the music between April 20 andMay 20, when theworldwas realizing the gravity of a stillescalating crisis.
“I actually had a greatgrandmother who died in the 1918-19 pandemic, whichwas a story in our family, but I never really thought of it. Itwas a tragedy that happened, and it deeply affectedmy grandmother. Shewas traumatized by it forever, probably.”
But Levy— like most of us— never expected such a scenario to roil our lives in the high-tech 21st century. With Levy’s schedule of constant global touring suddenly canceled, he found himself not only living through a pandemic of the kind that had scarred his family but also bearing theweight of toomuch time on his hands.
So he made music— at home on his 1923 Steinway, cracked soundboard and all.
“I started to record some
solo piano things,” he says. “I thought: Well, this is a good time. I’m totally isolated. Why don’t I try to record some solo piano stuff I’ve written that I’ve never put out?”
He soon hit a brickwall. Though Levy loves to perform, as anyone who has attended his shows knows, he felt strangely self-conscious playing for an audience of one: the microphone.
“It’s hard to record by yourself,” he says. “You have to do it a lot to get over it. So I started doing free improvisations. There’s no pressure on you thisway. Whatever comes out, comes out. Sometimes it’s going to be better, sometimesworse.”
As hewas riffing, Levy found himself imagining scenes— pictures ormovies that played in his mind as his fingers coursed over the keyboard. That process took him outside of himself and eased his self-consciousness, he says, en
abling musical ideas to pour forth.
Timewent by, and Levy felt progressively more comfortable with the process, until he realized what was happening: Hewas creating new compositions on the fly.
“Iwas not playing in a quote ‘free improvisational’ style so much as improvising in a compositional style,” explains Levy.
If that seems like a distinction without a difference, it’s quite clear on the recording. Its tracks sound like carefully constructed miniatures, most running between three and four minutes, rather than freeroaming improvisations. You don’t have to knowthat one of theworks is titled “Homage to Erik Satie” to hear the deep imprint of that early 20th-century French master, whose own keyboard vignettes (such as his famous “Gymnopedies”) influenced generations of less-is-more modernists.
“I’m a big fan of late 19th-century and early 20th-century French piano music,” says Levy. “A huge admirer of Satie and Ravel and Debussy, as are many jazz musicians: Coltrane, Herbie (Hancock), Miles (Davis). Ravelwas Coltrane’s favorite composer.”
Yet Levy’s solo piano vignettes differ fromRavel’s and Debussy’s piano works in one significant way: While most of those two masters’ piano pieces are technically difficult and complex, expanding the piano’s vocabulary, Levy’s “Looking Inward” pieces are disarmingly simple and direct. If you didn’t already knowtheywere created and performed by Levy, you’d never guess it, for he commands ample keyboard technique.
The primary comparison to Debussy’s oeuvre would be the “Children’s Corner” suite. And, indeed, it’s easy to envision many of Levy’s pieces being
transcribed for young pianists to learn.
“I’m trying to tell stories, rather than play the piano,” says Levy, in explaining the transparency of his new works. “And the piano ismy storytelling vehicle.
“Also, Iwas really concentrating on coherence, and I didn’twant to get off into some sort of technical realm. It’s just a different thing. It’s a side ofme that probably doesn’t come out in live performances as much.”
Along these lines, this is only the second album in Levy’s large discography that has no harmonica. Instead, on some tracks he has overdubbed his playing on hand drums, bamboo flute and mandolin.
It’s all quite delicate and introspective, and perhaps not surprisingly, a bitmelancholy.
“This music is very much music of this time, because a lot of it has a somber quality, which reflects the somber realities of this pandemic,” Levy acknowledges.
“Sometimes I felt almost like one of these medieval monks who sat in his cell writing illuminated manuscripts, working in solitude. So I think that’s part of what resonates with people with this music, is that all of us are spending a lot more time isolated from each other.”
To combat that isolation, in August Levy launched a “ThursdayNightHappening” livestream (via his website) in which he explored a different musical theme eachweek. The proceedswent to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and “we raised enough money for about 12,000 meals,” he says.
That series ended last month (all the shows are archived on Levy’swebsite), but he plans to resume it sometime. He’s also teaching harmonica lessons online to students around theworld and recording harmonica tracks for other artists, including one for Chicago singer Grazyna Auguscik’s next album.
Above all, though, Levy credits “Looking Inward” for having changed his outlook on our current troubles.
“Frombeing extremely down at the beginning of this … throughworking on this music, I’ve gotten more positive energy inmyself to work on all these different projects,” says Levy.
“It really led me towant to connect withmy audience again, when I put this out. And it started me on doing those Thursday night livestreams.”
In away, “Looking Inward” made it possible for Levy to look outward again.