ICON | APRIL 2016
interview A. D. AMOROSI
Stick Men Tony Levin, Markus Reuter, and Pat Maschelotto
PAPA BEAR
Multi-faceted guitarist Tony Levin of the progressive rock bands Stick Men and King Crimson has played on more than
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500 albums, including those by Cher, Pink Floyd, Yes, and Buddy Rich; written a tone poem about whale-watching; invented Funk Fingers (sticks attached to the fingers of bass guitar players make percussive sounds); became a blogger in 1996, long before there was such a thing as a web blog; and even began his own record label, Papa Bear Records.
ONY LEVIN IS A monster when it comes to the bass—mastering it, taming and terrorizing it, remaking it a new in his lean, mean image via his early adoption of the Chapman Stick and the tap dancing Funk Fingers. Since the late ‘60s, the fluid Levin has played and toured with more greats and not-sogreats than easily listed, cutting quite a sartorial figure as a tall, thin bald man with a sculpted, bushy mustache. Along with his work as bassist for the still-touring King Crimson and as stalwart sideman for Peter Gabriel (who has summer dates in Philly with Sting), Levin hosts a series of solo albums and self-starting recordings as Liquid Tension Experiment, the Levin Brothers (with keyboard playing sibling Peter) and as Stick Men. That last rhythm-heavy guise brings him to the area this month, April 13 at New Hope’s Havana and April 14 at New Jersey’s Roxy & Dukes.
Did you officially start with classical music? I asked this question last week of Andrew Bird, a violinist currently known for country swing and pop—what was the last classical piece that turned you on, that made you long for the form? I still listen to Classical a lot, and in Stick Men shows we sometimes do our version of Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite.” It’s crazy with only three players. So yes, it’s a part of my musical life even after these many years of not playing classical. You ask the last piece that got me involved… well, it’s not something unusual, but every morning when I go into my studio and start to organize the day’s work, it’s Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons that I put on to help me focus. I’ve read on more than one occasion that you fronted a barbershop quartet. Having spoken with many artists within doo wop and vocalese, as well as seeing that a capella’s tradition has been reborn—albeit in a slick fashion—was barbershop singing a tough road to hoe? I haven’t done a barbershop arrangement in some time, but yes, I’ve had fun through the years with them, and you never know when the chance will come up to throw one in. I‘ve done that with Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, and my own band. It’s a fun form both to perform and to hear. Your first gig was Aha!, with the Mothers of Invention keyboardist Don Preston’s band. What was that switch to rock/prog on such as high level like—Preston having just come off the Zappa gig must have been akin to Jimmy Page leaving the Yardbirds, no? Don Preston was, and is, a very special, free-thinking artist. He took that band in some unusual directions, and even though we were spectacularly unsuccessful, it was a great experience for me. By the way, the [band’s] full name was Aha, the Attack of the Green Slime Beast and the other members were Ray Collins and Billy Mundi, both alumni of Zappa’s band. Do you wish that more artists would call on you to play tuba? The truth is, since I have grown baffi [mustache] it’s hard to get a good sound on the tuba, and that’s a long time. I’d say even if I was asked to play it, I’d be wise to play something else. Why do you to choose to be the band’s leader on an album or tour? Through a lot of years in music, I’ve found that I’m equally happy in any of the three show situations—being the backup player to an artist, or in an equal band, or being what we call the front man. It’s the music that captivates me and if that’s good, I’m a happy musician. It’s a timely subject since in our Stick Men touring I’ve usually been the one talking between pieces, but in the last year we tried sharing the spotlight among the three of us, and found it’s a better show that way. Okay, in Italy it will be mostly me because the others don’t speak Italian. You’ve been doing shows and albums with your brother Pete, more so now within the last few years than before. What motivated that union? A few years ago we had the idea to return to the music that we both loved as young boys. That’s a long time ago. We did the ‘smooth jazz’ of the 1950s, and featured melodic songs with quite short solos—some tracks only three or four minutes long. The group I really liked most then had a great bass player, Oscar Pettiford, who also played cello. So, with me on cello and Pete on keyboards, we wrote new music in that style, added a sax player, and made, I think, quite a nice album with no thought about what the market wants or the jazz scene is into. This was an album from the heart. And for that same reason, we decided to make it an LP, too. We toured some last year but, alas, my touring schedule this year doesn’t allow time for it, so it’ll be 2017 before we re-convene the band. I think of Pete as a jazz player at heart, who also plays rock very well. And I’m a rock player at heart, who can play some jazz. So in some ways Pete is truer to the form than I am. I’m not speaking here about our album together, which was definitely within a form. Probably from my experience in progressive rock, I’m usually pretty open to stepping into unusual territory musically.
You’ve lent your unique sound to many songwriters. I don’t want a comparison, but take David Bowie, Paul Simon, Lou Reed and the McGarrigle Sisters—what made the process of playing with them different? The first point to make is that I’ve been very lucky to have wonderful artists choose me, or happen across me, for their music. What happens with me as a bass player is simply that I’m a big fan of good music, so I hear the song, whether it’s a famous artist or an unknown one, and I begin to internally fashion a bass part that seems really good for that song. I don’t come in with ideas about how I’ll play, that’s determined by the music. Then in the studio the process of making an album varies a lot depending on the album. With some artists, they want to have input to the bass part—certainly with Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel. With David Bowie, he seemed happy to let me make up the bass part. With the McGarrigles—who are great—there wasn’t much time in the studio, so the parts came together quickly. That happens on a lot of recordings. And on the one track I played for Lou Reed’s Berlin, Lou wasn’t there, just the producer and me. How was playing with jazz flutist Herbie Mann? Very cool. I did a few albums, but a lot of touring. Very loose and fun music, with the band changing each week depending on who was free to go out on the road. He just wanted a good rhythm section and left us free to come up with the grooves, then he’d play over it. You and Pat Masteloto played in the most recent King Crimson septet and, as always, gave Robert Fripp’s vision another unique twist. When he asks each collaborator to do his own thing—and you’ve certainly been down this road with him many times before—how do you decide what you’re going to do with him? Crimson is always a pleasure for me, and it’s always a challenge. In this incarnation we’re doing a lot of music from the past, that I hadn’t played bass on, and that’s an extra challenge; deciding how closely to stay with the original part, and where there’s room for me to be myself without losing the special character of the great material. I’d say I rely on Robert Fripp’s reactions quite a bit, to see if my ideas on that work well for the guy who wrote the music and has been playing it since the beginning. With our new material, it’s again up to me, but I value Robert’s sense of where the band is going. That’s important for a band this large, so you have a distinctive voice and don’t go flying in each player’s different direction. King Crimson will tour in Europe this fall and winter. I don’t know about next year’s schedule, but the plan is to keep this band together and making music for some time. You worked with near-Philly native Lou Christie and played on Who Knows What Tomorrow’s Gonna Bring? by organist Brother Jack McDuff with Philly trumpeter Randy Brecker. Philly has a deep feeling for the jazz Hammond B-3 and, of course, there’s Brecker. What do you remember about these sessions? No stories from those sessions, I’m afraid—some 45 years ago—but yes, I think the Lou Christie album was named Lou Christie. My memory is hazy, but I seem to remember ‘Beyond the Blue Horizon,’ an old standard being part of the sessions. Jack McDuff, for sure—at Atlantic— it was a thrill for me. And I did many things with Randy and Michael Brecker; we were in a band together when we first came to the big city (NYC) called White Elephant. What do you like so much about Masteloto to play with him in settings outside of Crimson/Fripp? I’ve played with Pat really a lot, and in very different situations, and it’s always a pleasure and an inspiration. He’s one of those few players who has a sense of how to play progressively, so does the right thing in a Crimson or Stick Men context. But he also has a great groove, so when it’s time to be simple and rock out—when there’s finally some bars of 4/4!—he’s among the best players you can have for that. What’s the big difference between Michael Bernier and Markus Reuter in Stick Men? Like most musicians, they’re completely different from each other. Markus writes from a standpoint of having had composition training, as well as being part of Fripp’s Guitar Craft experience. Michael is a fan of jazz rock, has amazing chops, and comes up with his parts and pieces in no time at all. I know that for me, I’ve learned a lot from both of them, and have a lot to continue to learn in this world of touch guitar playing. How would you describe the arc between Power Play, the music that lives in the performances of Midori, and what will exist within Prog Noir’s tunes? Well, because we’re just finishing the mix of Prog Noir, it’s very much on my mind. This time we took a lot of time to write special new material and a lot of it. We could have actually released the album a year ago, but chose to keep refining the material. So it has, I hope, the best of what we do in Stick Men—a unique sound with just three players. But the touch guitars and Pat’s electronics lets us make a very full sound—a unique style of writing; among others, there’s a song about Pluto becoming a dwarf planet. And a unique sense of what we want to do musically. ■