“Cleverly conceptualized and elegantly executed…a cohesive set of excellent performances that will inspire listeners to take a meaningful glance up at that shining orb with renewed wonder.”—Bobby Reed, DownBeat Editor’s Pick
“The truly lovely and even daring thing about Allegra Levy is just how little attention she directs at herself, despite her rhythmic, harmonic and improvisatory skills…a fine collection by a most talented singer.”—Donald Elfman, New York City Jazz Record
“Levy has a fresh voice, sultry at times, wispy at other times but always involved with the lyrics…She is, or should be one of The jazz singers.”—Robert Rusch, Cadence
The New Yorker
Allegra Levy: “Lose My Number”
When the secret history of postwar jazz is finally written, John McNeil—a trumpeter, composer, and bandleader whose unclassifiable stylistic bent has made him a hero to his coterie of listeners and an odd man out to the mainstream—may merit his own chapter. The vocalist Allegra Levy, apparently one of McNeil’s biggest fans, has put her own shrewd lyrics to nine of McNeil’s engaging compositions. The result, “Lose My Number: Allegra Levy Sings John McNeil,” is a showcase for Levy’s modestly scaled but agile vocalizing and her gift for sculpting words, and for McNeil’s far too neglected abilities as a melodic architect. McNeil’s trumpet work on the ballad “Zephyr”—one of his three instrumental contributions to the album—is a gentle seal of approval.
JazzTimes
Allegra Levy Puts Words to John McNeil’s Music
The vocalist writes lyrics to the trumpeter's instrumentals on her new album
DECEMBER 9, 2020 – BY ALLEN MORRISON
When John McNeil, the esteemed trumpeter/composer, recorded his original tune “Lose My Number” in 2001, it had no lyrics. “It’s the opposite of a love song, a no-love-lost song,” McNeil said recently. “It was an instrumental. I never even thought about putting words to it.”
McNeil, 72, likens the composition to something by Ornette Coleman. As in some of Coleman’s music, “there’s this happy triad kind of thing going on,” even though the triads “don’t have normal relationships—they go up a whole step, down a major third, up a whole step,” zooming around the song’s structure like a pinball. “The song is negative, but it’s happy,” he said.
It’s also damn near unsingable.
That didn’t faze the jazz singer and songwriter Allegra Levy, who wrote lyrics to it and eight other McNeil instrumentals for her latest album, Lose My Number (SteepleChase). She not only masters the tune’s odd intervals and meters, but also adds a degree of wit and cheek uncommon in the often self-serious jazz world. Levy’s lyrics have a mordantly funny, feminist slant: “You may think that I’m the one/But I can promise you that I’m no fun, no/Lose my number/Lose it!/Don’t you dare call me up on the phone.”
McNeil, a stalwart of the New York jazz scene, played with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Horace Silver Quintet, and Gerry Mulligan before establishing his own bands. His post-bop aesthetic is one part cool jazz, one part free jazz; his strong melodies are dependably matched to unusual, occasionally outré harmonies and rhythmic curveballs.
“John’s songs always tell a story,” Levy, 30, said via FaceTime from her Manhattan apartment. “They’re still modern and challenging,” she added, even though many of them were written in the late ’70s and ’80s. “He takes complex ideas from theory and turns them into astute melodies.” McNeil was a mentor to Levy at the New England Conservatory and produced her first two albums, Lonely City and Cities Between Us.
Levy comes from a family of writers; her three previous albums, praised by critics, have mostly featured her own songs. Her own music embraces swing and American songbook tradition, with lyrics that are wry, occasionally caustic, yet often wistfully romantic. She recently won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest for her pandemic-era children’s song, “Wash My Hands.”
McNeil and Levy collaborated closely on Lose My Number. First Levy asked McNeil to suggest songs of his that might lend themselves to lyrics. “Writing lyrics after the music has been written is a different skill set with its own challenges,” she said. “You have to know the music really well. We went over everything together, but the truth is the songs became new entities on this project.
“For example, if you listen to his 2001 song ‘Strictly Ballroom,’ it’s very different. We made a playful feminist diatribe out of it. (The witty lyric, about a Lothario on the dance floor, includes the memorable line, “Don’t you dare/You’re no Fred Astaire.”) He let me run with it. He was very supportive of my ideas and gave me space to work. At other times he told me go back and try again, it wasn’t hitting the mark, and he was right every time.”
Levy performs the songs with an all-female band of seasoned pros: pianist Carmen Staaf, who has appeared on all of Levy’s previous albums; bassist Carmen Rothwell; and drummer Colleen Clark. McNeil is featured on trumpet on three songs.
Staaf, who also studied with McNeil at NEC, is currently music director for Dee Dee Bridgewater, among other projects. She relished working on the project. “Some of John’s pieces remind me of Wayne Shorter,” she said by video chat, “short, compact pieces, but they take you on a story melodically and harmonically. There’s so much music packed into a compressed form.”
The pianist praises Levy’s leadership. “Allegra has a clear concept—there’s no wondering should we do this or that; it’s always like, okay, here’s the plan. She’s self-possessed, even though she’s also humble. She knows herself well. That’s a great quality in a bandleader. And she hired a band who are fun to hang out with. And they happen to be women.”
Levy, who co-leads the New York-based Women in Jazz Organization (WIJO), made a conscious decision to hire an all-female band for the album. “I just felt that this music needed to be played by young women, specifically. I wanted to make a statement with this record. Anybody could play these tunes, but I feel like these women really understood what I was trying to say, and we just had fun. These women came to play—it’s very apparent.”
McNeil couldn’t be more pleased with the result. “Allegra was the first person to ask to record a whole album of my tunes. I was really happy, because I like her lyrics. She combines compositional skills with the lyrical skills. I think she’s great, man.”
NEw YORK MUSIC DAILY
on "Cities Between Us"
Jazz Songwriter/Vocalist Allegra Levy Adds to the Canon with Her Haunting Breakthrough Album
Allegra Levy seems to be shooting for a franchise on heartbreak. For anybody who’s been blindsided – and let’s be honest, who hasn’t – she sings your life back to you.
She’s an anomaly in the vocal jazz world, a strong original songwriter who’d rather sing her own material than standards from decades ago. Her low-key, moody 2014 debut album Lonely City captured the downside of romance against a purist, trad backdrop. Her new album Cities Between Us – streaming at Spotify – swings harder and has more optimism, but there’s no evading the darkness in her writing.
Her lyrics are uncommonly smart, full of striking imagery and a pervasive angst. As all first-rate jazz vocalists do, she sings in character, word by word, line by line: you would think that other jazz singers would have a similarly meticulous, emotionally attuned approach, but unfortunately most of them don’t.
Read the rest here: https://newyorkmusicdaily.wordpress.com/tag/allegra-levy-cities-between-us/
NEW YORK TIMES
on "Lonely City"
"The core of the young jazz singer Allegra Levy, at the moment, lies in negative or desperate statements, in songs she’s written like “Anxiety,” “I Don’t Want to Be in Love,” and “I’m Not Okay,” from her album “Lonely City” (Steeplechase). She’s got a good thing going: fresh and gloomy, light-voiced and grim-tempered. She’s not out to clobber you with speed or skill or projection — she hangs back but arrives at the notes responsibly, without a big show, incorporating careful 1950s cool but authentic modern cynicism, too. The band — including the saxophonist Adam Kolker and guitarist Steve Cardenas — and John McNeil’s arrangements make the songs complex and exotic, pushing them far beyond the ordinary."
~ Ben Ratliff- The New York Times
JAZZ TIMES MAGAZINE
on "Lonely City"
"Discovering a fresh, dynamic jazz voice is always a delight. When the singer proves as an equally gifted songwriter, the pleasure is squared. Allegra Levy is one such double-barreled talent. The recent New England Conservatory grad, a crystalline alto with a sultry layer of Chris Connor-esque smoke, made her recording debut while still in her teens, teaming with guitarist Elden Kelly to shape 2008's A New Face. while mightily promising, that mix of covers and originals clearly suggested Levy needed more ripening.
And blossom she has. Lonely City comprises 11 Levy originals, including two selections from the earlier album that have been impressively revitalized. Working with a tight quintet featuring standout saxophonist Adam Kolker, Levy mirrors the dexterity of Peggy Lee, able to both swing like mad (most notable on the galloping "I Don't Want to Be in Love") and snuggle tenderly inside a ballad. Like Lee, she can also be deliciously coy and coltish, as fetchingly demonstrated in the opening "Anxiety," sort of an insouciant "Black Coffee."
Lee was, of course, a superb tunesmith. Levy also excels as a songwriter, particularly as a lyricist. Her wordplay occasionally approaches the canniness of Cole Porter, and as a storyteller she variously aspires to the prowess of Harold Arlen, Carolyn Leigh and Stephen Sondheim.
She is unquestionably, one to watch."
The HArtford Courant
"Levy's music is sophisticated, worldly and swinging, with a wide range of tonal colors and moods not unlike Portland's Pink Martini. Levy's voice is one we should expect to hear from for a long time."
- Michael Hammad Hartford Courant
WNPR
" Lonely City is not only a showcase for her vocal craftsmanship, but also for her skills as a composer, with a knack for lyrical melodies, and as a lyricist who writes with a memoirlike directness about love and the complexity of relationships. "
"Artistically, Levy’s tunes are tempered by her love for the classic traditions of song writing. This aesthetic and historical consciousness is seasoned with a distinctly contemporary sensibility echoing through her lyrics. As part of her signature style, she loves to play on the seeming paradox of life’s contradictory mixes, whether of old and new styles, or lyrics that are simultaneously self deprecating yet defiant, or moods that are deeply introspective, then dance as a celebration of life."
"Her singing is rooted in a similar sort of artistic declaration of independence. Instead of just going along with the fashionably loud and flashy style of the moment, she wrings meaning through nuanced inflection and expressive phrasing." -Owen McNally WNPR