Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Lewinowski

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Nickolay Levinovsky 2011

Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Lewinowski or Nikolay "Nick" Levinovsky ( Russian: Николай Яковлевич Левиновский ; * December 14, 1944 in Saratov ) is a jazz pianist , composer , arranger, bandleader and author from the Soviet Union and living in the United States .

Live and act

Nikolai Lewinowski comes from a musical family; both parents were opera singers. He studied piano at the Saratov State Conservatory from 1959 to 1963 . He was active in the Russian jazz scene from the early 1960s, initially in local bands in Saratov. After his military service, which he spent from 1964 to 1967 in the jazz orchestra of the Red Army , he completed musicological and composition studies in his hometown from 1968 to 1974. He came to jazz at the age of 13 through the broadcasts of Willis Conovers Voice of America . In 1969 he accepted Eddie Rosner's invitation and moved to Moscow with his quartet . He then worked as pianist, musical director and main arranger of the famous Moscow Eddie Rosner Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Rosner himself (until 1971) and later under Anatoli Kroll, who became Rosner's successor. From 1975 to 1978 he directed the Azerbaijan Symphonic Jazz Orchestra . He also played with US-American musicians guesting in Russia, such as Duke Ellington , Milt Hinton , Thad Jones , Dave Brubeck and Ray Conniff , for whom he played piano on an album recorded in Russia.

In 1978 Lewinowski founded the Allegro formation , with which he became known throughout the Soviet Union and won numerous prizes. Allegro was voted the best jazz band in the USSR ; Lewinowski himself won the Musician of the Year award four times . The band, in which Alexander Fischer and Victor Dvoskin played among others , was mentioned for their (brief) fusion of Russian folk songs with jazz. Nikolai Lewinowski has appeared with Allegro at numerous Western European jazz festivals and has appeared on television and radio broadcasts. As a member of the Union of Soviet Composers and the Jazz Federation of the USSR, Lewinowski and Allegro played at international concerts with Chick Corea , Gary Burton , Grover Washington Jr. and Jan Garbarek , as well as with Don Cherry , with whom they performed in Bombay . He recorded a total of eight albums with Allegro ; his album Sphinx was also released in the United States, where Lewinwski emigrated in 1990.

After his arrival in New York, Nikolai Lewinowski a. a. with Victor Jones , Major Holley and Tom Harrell and worked with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra ; In addition, he then appeared with a new edition of Allegro in the USA, for example at the Jazz Blues Festival in Salt Lake City or the JVC Jazz Festival at Lincoln Center , Avery Fisher Hall (1995). Since then he has also worked as a musicologist and columnist for the Russian-American newspaper Novoe Russcoe Slovo . Lewinowski has been working with a 17-member big band since 1994 , which plays his compositions in which he combines his Russian roots with the language of jazz. She performed in Birdland (1996), Smalls, and an open air concert series on Park Avenue in Manhattan . In 1999 he recorded the album Listen Up! With this formation . followed by an album he recorded with his wife, singer Kathy Jenkins ( From This Moment On with The Nick Levinovsky Big Band and Trio ).

Discographic notes

Albums with Allegro

  • Contrasts (1979)
  • In this World (1981)
  • Golden Mean (1983)
  • Sphinx (1985)
  • Around the Blues (1987)
  • Classical Jazz Ballads (1988)

Albums under your own name

  • Listen up! (NLO, 1999)
  • Kind of Red (NLO, 2000)
  • Special Opinion (Butman Music, 2013), with Randy Brecker, Igor Butman, Bill Evans, Dave Weckl, Mike Stern

Web links

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Remarks

  1. ↑ Over the years, in addition to Alexander Fischer and Viktor Dworkin, Sergei Gurbeloschwili, Viktor Jepaneschnikow, Alik Sakarjan, Evgeny Guberman, Yuri Genbachev, Alexei Gagarin, Vyacheslav Nasarov and Igor Butman have played in this ensemble . The "Allegro Ensemble", which was formally employed by the "Moskonzert" (the Moscow Philharmonic), has made guest appearances in India, Sri Lanka, France, Hungary, the GDR and Yugoslavia and has performed at many jazz festivals in the Soviet Union and abroad on.
personal data
SURNAME Lewinowski, Nikolai Jakowlewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Levinovsky, NiKolai; Levinovsky, Nick (stage name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Saratov