Papa Bear Essentials: Tony Levin 80

Tony Levin Band - Utopia

Yes, that's correct, Junelings. Tony Levin is 80. Eighty. Years. Ancient. What we all saw in the mirror this morning didn't lie... we're getting old here.

So it's the first of two posts to begin June that concern milestone birthversary moments for two legends of the bass guitar.

I'm trying to remember the first time I ever saw Tony Levin on a stage.

It's been a whole lotta many since then, but if I had to say definitively, my cannabinized mammary banks put it at King Crimson on The Pier in NYC in the Summer of 1984. Although I might have seen him with Peter Gabriel before that, I am not sure.

It doesn't specifically matter, as this is Tony Levin we're talking about. You can bet that whenever you saw him and with whomever he was playing, you saw as good as there was, is and may ever be on Planet Earth.

He started, back when he had hair, at the end of the 1960s in the band of the Mangione brothers, Chuck and Gap.

There he is, pioneering the then-new-and-nifty Ampeg stand-up bass in 1969, back when the latest gear meant people could become known for showcasing the most current equipment. And who among us doesn't want to be known for showing their cutting-edge equipment? roflmao

Anyway, while Chuck Mangione would go on to rule the charts and Feel So Good doing it, Tony Levin became a sought after 1970s session player.

If you know the slinky, track-defining bassline of Paul Simon's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, for one example among many I could mention, you are familiar with the talents of Tony.

After contributing massively to Peter Gabriel's initial forays outside the Charterhouse arrest of Genesis, and John Lennon's double-fantastic comeback LP in 1980, our hero's career really hit warp stride.

For when he'd been a part of Gabriel's first solo record in 1977, he had become friends with King Crimson's Robert Fripp, who'd only then just returned to the music industry after a spell of Continuing Education with J.G. Bennett and the work of philosopher-mystic Georges Gurdjieff.

When it came time to form a big, new and potentially world-dominating band, Tony Levin was Fripp's first call to man the low end.

It was in the hyper-polyrhythmic and highly percussive, guitar-gamelan KC that made Discipline in 1981 in which Tony's use of the Chapman Stick came to prominence, with the wide-timbred range of the instrument really becoming integral to the compositions in ways they hadn't yet been when he'd used it at its introduction in the '70s.

Once KC split for the 100 millionth time in 1984, he went on to star on more Peter Gabriel albums and tours, until returning to the Crimson fold in 1995 and again several times since.

He's been in a million parallel projects as well, from David Torn's extra-exquisite Cloud About Mercury band to the quartet of HoBoLeMa, alongside Allan Holdsworth, Terry Bozzio and fellow Crimsoid Pat Mastelotto.

He also occasionally makes a record with his own group, under his own name and featuring his own compositions. This concert, which I went a little overboard meticulously restoring in honor of his 80th birthday, is from the first time he toured his own band as a leader, in 2000.

Tony Levin Band

Palookaville

Santa Cruz, California USA

6.15.2000

01 Sevens (intro)

02 Pillar of Fire

03 Waters of Eden

04 Gecko Walk/band introductions

05 Icarus/Jerry demonstrates the spring drum

06 Flight of the Looking Glass/Tony talks

07 L'Abito della Sposa

08 Stick jam/Elephant Talk

09 Beginnings/Jam Back At the House

10 Opal Road

11 Back In NYC

12 Utopia

13 Bone and Flesh

14 Belle

15 I Go Swimming

16 Sevens (outro)

Total time: 1:55:24

disc break goes after Track 09

Tony Levin - bass, Chapman Stick & vocals

Jerry Marotta - drums, percussion, saxophone & vocals

Jesse Gress - guitars & vocals

Larry Fast - keyboards

master DAT soundboard capture of the complete concert

de/remuxed for better balance, edited, denoised, repaired, retracked & remastered by EN, June 2026
658 MB FLAC/direct link

I'll be back with Bass Deity Of The Month, part II in a few days, but let's go in order and give proper respects to the first! To that we toast a big Bottoms Up! to Tony Levin -- thankfully still flashing his Funk Fingers upon unsuspecting gear into his eighties -- as he joins the ranks of Octogenaria today.--J.