HOWARD LEVY
Genres: Post Bop, Blues, Third Stream, Post-Fusion Contemporary, Latin Jazz, Hard Bop, Classic Fusion • United States

Howard Levy (born July 31, 1951) is an American harmonicist, pianist, composer, and producer. 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". Levy more recently won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition in 2012 for "Life In Eleven", a song which he co-wrote with Bela Fleck, featured on the Flecktones' 2011 release "Rocket Science". Levy was born in Brooklyn, New York City. He attended Poly Prep Country Day School and graduated in 1969. He was the first to use the overblow and overdraw techniques for chromatic playing on the diatonic harmonica in the 1970s[citation needed]. 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 read more...