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Innovative instrumentals with "unplugged" solo piano and saxophones, including epic pieces with jazz/classical elements, performed by Adam Levin with Steve Wirts. Produced by Rob Myman. Engineered & mastered by Jay Mark. Additional mastering by The SoundLab. Illustration: Annette Goldberg. Photograph: Rhoda Pinsley Levin. Disc label image: Squid 7. 45 min. "...a sophisticated and contemporary writer – hear him!" – Kirk Nurock, Composer/Pianist, Koch Jazz/Classical Recording Artist; "His piano playing has a great touch." – Wallace Roney, Trumpeter/Producer, Grammy Award-winning Jazz Recording Artist [MORE CRITIQUES] [ORDER]
Each time I hear Adam Levin play one of his pieces – new or old – I reflexively smile and shake my head in amazement at just how good he is. If I could pin it down to only one thing....but, of course, I can’t. It’s easiest to start with a laundry list of the technical stuff: his encyclopedic harmonic vocabulary, his deftness with the most complex rhythmic and metric patterns, his ambitious but solid sense of structure, his stunningly beautiful and well-constructed melodies, and the way he performs it all with an acrobat’s balance of drama and subtlety. But what’s most impressive to me is the seemingly effortless manner in which he ties all these elements and more – across an impressively wide stylistic range – into one organic whole, bearing his unique and unmistakable stamp on every bar. Adam’s magnum opus Islands engages in a bit of seriously playful one-upmanship, daring the listener to keep up with him as he takes us on a roller-coaster ride through an apparently haphazard collection of themes that is ultimately revealed to be an intricately balanced construct, bringing order out of chaos just as a kaleidoscope wrings symmetrical beauty from broken glass. Not Coming Home, a bright, jazzy song-without-words, crackles with the peculiar energy of thwarted expectations. Adam lulls us with his delicate ode to self-deception, Lying (in my sleep), only to issue a defiantly swinging wake-up call in the form of an excerpt from Ivory Tower. In Things Left Unsaid, one of his most sinuous, sensuous melodies gets a rich, intimate jazz (a la Levin) treatment. And check out the great bass work! Then there’s the crystalline Mantra. Initially an attempt at bare-bones minimalism, the embellishments of this musical mandala take it – and us – from its Reichian roots into the sublime territory that is Adam’s own.
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