Howard Levy

Howard Levy (born July 31, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American harmonica player and pianist. He is probably best known as a founding member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, with whom he won a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for their live recording of their 1991 song "The Sinister Minister". One of rather few jazz harmonica players, Levy has also worked extensively as a session musician in a variety of musical... more

Howard Levy (born July 31, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American harmonica player and pianist. He is probably best known as a founding member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, with whom he won a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for their live recording of their 1991 song "The Sinister Minister". One of rather few jazz harmonica players, Levy has also worked extensively as a session musician in a variety of musical styles and contexts(notably with Fleck, Ben Sidran and Rabih Abou-Khalil). He was the first to use the overblow and overdraw techniques for chromatic playing on the diatonic harmonica in the 1970s. These allow a harmonica player to obtain all the missing chromatic notes in the Richter-tuned diatonic harmonica. In 1988, Levy co-founded the Flecktones, leaving the group in 1993. He has appeared on over 200 albums and has played on several movie soundtracks. In 2001, he composed the first concerto written for the diatonic harmonica. He has... less