ADAM LEVIN: things left unsaid

Adam Levin

things left unsaid

© 2002 Different Drum Music / All rights reserved (ASCAP)

CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.

SPECIAL: 20% discount if you buy more than one copy of it today!

Innovative jazz/classical instrumentals with "unplugged" solo piano and saxophones, and elements of Lyle Mays, Dave Stewart (Nat'l Health), Allan Holdsworth, Steve Hackett, Steve Reich and Donald Fagen

tracks

1 Islands, Part One: Pandora's Box
2 Islands, Part Two: Needle's Eye
3 Islands, Part Three: Testament
4 September
5 Not Coming Home
6 Lying (in my sleep)
7 Ivory Tower (excerpt)
8 Things Left Unsaid
9 Intrigue
10 Mantra
11 Groundless

notes

Shades of jazz, classical, rock & funk, with epic as well as short pieces. (Playing time: 45 min.)

For a more accurate representation of this CD's sound & instrumentation as heard over full stereo speakers, listen to its audio excerpts with a headset. And feel free to submit a comment at the bottom of the page!

"...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

"His music has the rare ability to appeal to not only musicians seeking cerebral stimulation, but also innocent ears in search of a beautiful, memorable melody." - Tricia Tahara, Singer/Songwriter, Savant (Highnote) Jazz Recording Artist

"I dig that solo stuff greatly. LYING (IN MY SLEEP) is frickin' awesome! That bass line at the beginning of ISLANDS still freaks me out, as it is so perfectly melodic, and the short, quirky harmonic shift in THINGS LEFT UNSAID still sounds great!" - Ian Smit, Guitarist/Composer (Monkeyworks)

"...number one on my 'Top 40'. (Billboard's got nothing on this kid.)" - Jonathan Keezing, Guitarist/Composer, Passion Records

"He's the best blues pianist I've heard who 'doesn't play blues'." - Marc Landesberg, Bass Guitarist

"...quite an impressive album. The ISLANDS suite is excellent and kicks things off in fine fashion, and some of the quieter, more intimate solo pieces are quite beautiful and evocative. This has been a nice late-Saturday-night or early-Sunday-morning album..." - JM

ABOUT THE MUSIC:

"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 sold 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 rollercoaster 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 wakeup 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 barebones minimalism, the embellishments of this musical mandala take it - and us - from its Reichian roots into the sublime territory that is Adam's own." - Peter Stoller

CREDITS:

Composed and performed by Adam Levin
Tenor & alto saxophones performed by Steve Wirts (on 'ISLANDS' Parts 1 & 3)

Engineered and mastered by Jay Mark, with additional mastering by The SoundLab.

For additional audio samples, liner notes and graphics from this CD, click on "Things Left Unsaid" CD link on this page.

(All profits go to American Red Cross disaster relief through 10/25/05)

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Can accessible music be intelligent? And intelligent music passionate? Adam Levin tries to answer those questions with his music. Music that classical musicians have called jazz. And jazz musicians have called rock. And rock musicians? They've called it classical. With some pop, soul and funk sneaked in.

In fact, one could call Adam's work the "liberal arts" of music. One discipline is not enough. But that's predictable coming from a background of classical piano training, pop music listening, and European ("progressive") art rock, or jazz- and classical-rock fusion, and the "psychedelic" movement that ushered it in.

Adam has written well over a hundred songs and instrumental pieces, with an array of instrumentation. They run the gamut from pop to contemporary classical, sometimes combining contrasting elements. His lyrics range from the state of the heart to the state of the world, with a sense of irony, poetry, spirituality, storytelling and humor.

He has composed, written lyrics, arranged, produced, played keyboards and/or sung for numerous musical, performance and recording artists, and theatre. His songs have been accepted by major music publishing, performed at hundreds of events in North America and Europe, been featured on radio and television, and received critical acclaim.

He continues to record and perform in the New York tri-state area, including as a writer, arranger, keyboardist and vocalist for Wendy Boulding, Ellen Weiss and Valerie Gomes. He has written individually as well as with Wendy Boulding, David Brooks, Joe Lobell, Elena Rye Pellicciaro, Anne Ptasznik, Kathryn Sanders, Tomas Stark and Peter Stoller, nearly all of whom he has performed with.

He studied music composition, piano and musical theatre at Interlochen Center for the Arts/University of Michigan School of Music, Indiana University School of Music, and Berklee College of Music. Fortunately, he succeeded in not allowing any of it to interfere with his musical education. Despite his maverick nature, he has even received the occasional award. Even when they didn't know how to categorize his music.

You'll have to decide that for yourself.

MYSPACE:

MySpace Members are invited to become "friends" at www.myspace.com/AdamLevinMusic and www.myspace.com/BlissfulBehemoth .

reviews

Please log in to review this album.

  • exhilarating
    author: Hyman Enzer

    Exhilarating music! I can hear its inner and outer voices.

  • mellifluous
    author: Beverly Goldman

    I love this music! It's exciting. It's mellifluous. It's stirring and passionate. Now I KNOW I picked the right one!

email

Please log in to email this artist.