Pete Levin hasn't done a lot of recording under his own name, even though he's been a professional musician for decades. But this veteran of both jazz and pop eschews musical boundaries in this wide-ranging outing on Hammond organ, assisted by guitarists
Joe Beck or Mike DeMicco, electric bassist
Tony Levin, drummer
Danny Gottlieb, and percussionists Ken Lovelett and Carlos Valdez. From the world of rock,
Levin offers a snappy, grooving treatment of
Donald Fagen's "Deacon Blues" and a laid-back rendition of
Brian Wilson's "Sail on Sailor" that borders on smooth jazz. His catchy reworking of impressionist composer Erik Satie's First Gymnopedie takes this familiar 20th century piece into a completely new direction.
Levin's "Might Have Been" is a dark, bluesy vehicle for
Beck. His interpretations of two
Jimmy Giuffre compositions also merit praise. The playful conclusion is a straight-ahead setting of the decades-old standard "Mean to Me." This is a fun outing by a musician who needs to get under the spotlight a bit more frequently. ~ Ken Dryden