(Left) Cecil Taylor & Robert Levin at Taylor’s Brooklyn home, June 2015
(Right) Cecil Taylor & Robert Levin leaving Ornette Coleman’s funeral service, June 27, 2015.
Robert Levin, Cecil Taylor, Matt Levin (2015)
For more on Taylor see, Notes from a Season at the Center of the Universe: Cecil Taylor at the Take 3.
And, Cecil Taylor: “This Music is the Face of a Drum.”
Also see, The War is Over: A Conversation About Jazz with Robert Levin.
Called by Nat Hentoff “a writer from whom I always learn something,” Robert Levin is a jazz critic whose work focuses on free jazz. Writing since the 1950s, he has contributed to Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, All About Jazz and DownBeat. He’s the coauthor of two books on free jazz and has penned more than 100 liner notes for major labels like Blue Note. They include albums by John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. His criticism and memoirs reflect long-standing, first-hand engagement with the musicians and movement he documents.
Levin is also a writer of short fiction and general commentary, with multiple published collections. See the About and Front pages.