Uncle Funkster: Beyond the Bass with Tony Levin

Over the past half century, Tony Levin has been a prolific session player and one of the most active live performers on the planet. He’s contributed his talents to over five hundred albums amongst which include 15 with Peter Gabriel and 18 with King Crimson (counting live, studio, and compilations) alongside contributions to the work of John Lennon, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Herbie Mann, Paul Simon and many others. On tour, he’s traveled the World many times over with the aforementioned King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, and several of his own bands including Stick Men.

. This Fall, he’ll stage 65 performances in North America as a member of BEAT, celebrating King Crimson’s ‘80s repertoire alongside Adrian Belew, Steve Vai and Danny Carey interpreting “Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair.”

Levin’s seventh solo album, and his first since 2007, is entitled Bringing It Down to the Bass and is an autobiography of sorts, with the themes drawn from Levin’s musical life. It features a myriad of collaborators from his half-century-plus on the road and in the studio with Peter Gabriel, King Crimson and many, many others.

Features a Murderer’s Row of guest musicians including Robert Fripp, Vinnie Colaiuta, Earl Slick, Mike Portnoy, Steve Gadd, Jerry Marotta, Gary Husband, L. Shankar, Pete Levin, Jeremy Stacey, David Torn, Pat Mastelotto, Larry Fast, Steve Hunter, Manu Katche, Alex Foster, Dominic Miller, Markus Reuter, Collin Gatwood, Chris Pasin, Jay Collins, Josh Shpak, Don Mikkelsen.

I sat down with Tony and we discussed everything from this new album, the musicians who played on it, on through to his brand new book, what some of the songs mean to him and, oh yeah, even penguins!

Being that Bringing It Down to the Bass is your seventh solo album, and yet your first in 18 years, aside from an abundance of side projects, what has been stopping you from getting to record an album like this sooner? - “Well, first of all, it wasn’t intentional to wait that long. I had the best of problems; too much good live playing and touring to have time to finish the album. So eventually I got to it, bit by bit, and had a wealth of my material to choose from.”

Indeed, what were some of the biggest obstacles along the way to bringing this album to fruition and how did you overcome them? - “Not a lot of obstacles, really. Just ‘get on it, Tony’ was my theme. I didn’t assemble a rhythm section to do the tracks, which would make it easier and quicker. On this album I wanted to give myself a treat and, on each piece, think of who I’d most like to play on it - then try to reach them to do it. So there was some waiting for players to come home off the road (or getting them to record while ON the road). But well worth it.”

As for the album, I understand that it is dutifully self-served tribute to vast parts of your career, sonically rich and diverse, and perfectly showcases your influence on modern and contemporary music, so can you please explain just why it was indeed created this way and how it felt to you personally to record the tracks with all the notable musicians you brought on board; within the context of how it came together, both thematically and musically - “Guess I already addressed my wanting each track to have the players I’d most want to hear playing it. As to writing the material, it went through a long period - lots of pieces written, and as I started honing them down, the theme that appealed most to me was to feature different basses and bass techniques on each track, and also, for the booklet, to take photo portraits of each of the basses, not in the studio but out, in my imagination, in the world, doing what they’d like outside of making music. (Weird, I know, but… well, I’ve been playing basses most of my life, so focusing on our relationship isn’t so far fetched).”

Indeed, a lot of words and terms will be used to describe your music on this album, but how would you yourself sum up your sound on it ... and in just five (5) words? - “Super players enlivening Tony’s music.”

And do please tell us more about the quietly stoic, yet gainfully artistic look to the album cover, why you chose that particular image, and what you were thinking at the time? - “We took a lot of photos for possible use on the cover. Actually settled on a different one, a composite of me playing the upright and a statue that my father sculpted when I was young, of a bass player on the upright … but it implied jazz, so we switched to just a portrait of me with electric bass. Either way, the theme, to me, was that it’s about the bass.”

Please tell us (in a couple of sentences or less) a little more about what these tracks noted below mean to you and how they came to be:

Uncle Funkster - “Wanted to do a duo with the great drummer Vinnie Colaiuta - maybe on the Chapman Stick rather than bass. Didn’t have the schedule to get together for it, so I laid down my ideas, he played to that, then I re-played to him.”

Espressoville - “Writing the piece came first. Then decided to start and end it with the sound of my espresso machine (Breville) grinding out a coffee. Then I looped that, made it a bit percussive, but kept it somewhat in the background as I knew Steve Gadd’s drum part should be the main percussion element. For the horn parts, I’d just toured (with Peter Gabriel) with Josh Shpak playing trumpet, and loved his playing, so I had him record the lead part first, then had some of our great local players come into the studio to overdub, phrasing with Josh. Guitar, I chose my old friend Joe Caro, to give it the guitar groove it needed.”

Bungle Bass - “When I want to step outside the norm, one option is to have my friend David Torn play guitar on the track, in his utterly unique way.”

** TO BE CONTINUED!!**

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