Critics called Levin's most recent release, last year's Some Trees (hatOLOGY 632), “extraordinary music" (Stuart Kremsky, Cadence), “engagingly experimental" (Nate Chinen, New York Times) and “memorably impressive throughout" (Ken Waxman, JazzWord.com). AllAboutJazz-New York reviewer Donald Elfman added, “Cellist Daniel Levin expands the compositional and improvisational palettes of modern jazz on Some Trees with a provocatively assembled group of adventurous musicians and pieces. Like the trees in the John Ashbery poem from which Levin draws his inspiration, this music has the wild chaos of nature somehow centered in a sense of harmonious majesty."
Levin began playing cello at age six, and focused exclusively on classical music until the chance to improvise at a festival when he was 19 put him on the path to writing and improvising his own music. Now in his early 30's, Levin has collaborated with a long list of notable composer/improvisers that includes Borah Bergman, Billy Bang, Joe Maneri and William Parker. He has also worked in a variety of other genres with musicians ranging from Klezmer multi-instrumentalist Hankus Netsky to the 20-piece new music ensemble, Alarm Will Sound. Known as “a strong leader and a hot young improviser" (Michael Rosenstein, Signal to Noise), Levin leads bands such as the Daniel Levin Quartet and Daniel Levin's Black Bear, which have featured acclaimed sidemen such as Dave Ballou, Rob Brown, Matt Moran, Joe Morris and Nate Wooley. His third and latest CD, Blurry (hatOLOGY 653), hits the streets in December.
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