The Howard Levy 4
Howard Levy is an American multi-instrumentalist from Chicago. A keyboardist and virtuoso harmonica player, Levy has been realistically presented as one of the most important and radical harmonica innovators of the twentieth century, and is considered by many to be the best harmonica player in the world.
In 1988, Levy was a founding member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, with whom he won a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. He also won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition in 2012 for “Life in Eleven”, a song written with Béla Fleck for the Flecktones’ album Rocket Science (2011). He is making his only Washington state club appearance of the year tonight at the Rockfish with his band.
At the age of 19, he discovered how to play the diatonic harmonica as a fully chromatic instrument by developing techniques on it that had never existed before. This enabled Howard to take the harmonica out of its usual role as a Folk and Blues instrument, and into the worlds of Jazz, Classical, Middle Eastern music, and more. His discovery unlocked infinite possibilities for the harmonica world.
At home in many musical styles, he is a favorite with audiences worldwide and a recording artist sought after by Kenny Loggins, Dolly Parton, Paquito D’Rivera, Styx, Donald Fagen, Paul Simon, and many others. Howard has appeared on hundreds of CD’s and several movie soundtracks, most prominently on A Family Thing with Robert Duval and James Earl Jones.
His solo album Alone and Together (Balkan Samba Records) and his trio album Tonight and Tomorrow (Chicago Sessions) both received 4-star reviews in DownBeat. Howard also put out a classical CD featuring his Concerto for Diatonic Harmonica and Orchestra- the first true concerto composed for the instrument.
As an educator, Howard has taught at leading universities and conservatories, and online for TrueFire/ArtistWorks. His revolutionary technique book “Rhythms of the Breath” is the first of its kind to apply drum rudiments to the harmonica, influencing players around the world.
Howard tours as a solo artist, with Trio Globo, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and his new band, The Howard Levy 4.
“Levy has single-handedly revolutionized the harmonica…”
— NPR
“As Art Tatum was to the piano, so is Levy to the harmonica: a hyper-virtuoso whose feats can be admired and studied but never really replicated.”
— Chicago Tribune
