Tony Levin (born June 6 1946, Boston, Massachusetts) is an influential American bass player. He has been a member of King Crimson, Bruford Levin Upper Extremities, Liquid Tension Experiment, Peter Gabriel's touring band, and leads the Tony Levin Band. Levin is widely known as a talented session player, and has been featured on hundreds of albums, for hundreds of artists. He is sought after in the prog rock field, and has played with bands such as Pink Floyd, Yes (and splinter group Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe) and California Guitar Trio, in addition to diverse mainstream artists such as Alice Cooper, John Lennon, Seal, Sarah McLachlan, Todd Rundgren, Cher, Paul Simon and Lou Reed among many others.
Tony Levin is partly responsible for popularizing the Chapman Stick and the NS upright bass. He has also created funk fingers, a device for mimicking the sound of hitting the strings with drumsticks (which sounds very similar to slap style bass).
In addition to his work as a sideman and in collaborative projects, he has various solo albums (Waters of Eden, Pieces of the Sun), and a live Tony Levin Band album. In April, 2006 he released Resonator and launched a North American tour of the same name, which also travelled to Italy, Russia and Mexico.
Tony Levin (born 30 January 1940 in Shropshire) is a British jazz drummer.
Tony played at Ronnie Scotts London club in the 1960's with Joe Harriott Al Cohn, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Zoot Sims, Hank Mobley, Lee Konitz, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Ron Mathewson, Dave Holland, Toots Thielemanns, Mick Pyne, Clifford Jordan, Joe Henderson, Gary Burton, Kenny Wheeler, Tony Coe, and Ronnie Scott, among others.
His first major position came when he joined Tubby Hayes' Quartet (1965-9). He has worked with numerous groups and artists, including the Alan Skidmore quintet (1969), Humphrey Lyttelton band (1969), John Taylor's trio, quartet and sextet (1970s), Ian Carr's Nucleus (1970s), Stan Sulzmann quartet, Gordon Beck's Gyroscope, duo with John Surman (1976), European Jazz Ensemble, Third Eye (1979), Rob van den Broeck (1982), Philip Catherine's trio and quartet (1990s), Sophia Domancich Trio (with Paul Rogers, double bass; 1991-2000), Philippe Aerts trio and quartet (2000s).
Since 1980, Levin has worked extensively with saxophonist Paul Dunmall, including as a member of the free jazz quartet Mujician, also with Paul Rogers (double bass) and Keith Tippett (piano). In 1994, Levin released his solo album Spiritual Empathy, again with Dunmall on saxophones. In 2006 he played a trio gig with Dunmall & Rogers featuring Ellery Eskelin, Ray Anderson, Tony Malaby as guests at John Zorn's The Stone in NYC. More recently he has recorded again with Paul Dunmall but this time with the addition of his son Miles Levin on drums 'The Golden Lake'.
Tony has permission to sell the albums he has recorded through his own website - *http://www.raremusicrecordings.co.uk He also runs his own club in Birmingham UK on the first monday of each month - *http://www.tlsjazzclub.co.uk. He usually performs duet with Paul Dunmall as well as booking some of the finest musicians available to play.
