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Alan Lewine
Alan Lewine is a bassist and composer currently living in the Phoenix AZ region since 2020. He lived and played in and around Boulder and Denver Colorado in the late 70s, New Mexico through the 80s, Portland OR in the early 90s, DC for about 10 years starting in 1994 and then Philly for 14 years from 2006.
Alan founded Owlsong Productions in 1982, and released the first Owlsong album, Alan Lewine Septet: Original Jazz, in 1986. Alan has performed and recorded all over the U.S., Europe and Latin America.
Primarily a jazz musician, his influences and experiences include all forms of music – he has studied and played for example medieval Sephardic and Indonesian Gamelan, delta blues and afropop, flamenco and various fusions of the above, as well as all styles of jazz from trad to avant garde, and some classical.
Alan began playing string bass in 1978. He studied piano as a child, and later minored in composition and arranging at University when in his late 20s, while playing jazz gigs to put himself through school. Primarily a self-taught bassist, Alan learned from the more experienced musicians on every instrument with whom he had the good fortune to play. The mentorship of Milt Hinton early in his career was a large boost. When he lived in Oregon in the early 90s, he had the opportunity to hang with and learn from Leroy “Walkin” Vinnegar and to work with a learn from many of the greats there. Alan has received “green room” lessons, counsel and encouragement from the likes of Ray Brown, Harvie S, Major Holley, Lynn Seaton, John Clayton and Bruce Gertz.
Alan’s first recordings were released in the mid- 1980s and have received excellent reviews.media/press/reviews page. Besides leading his own ensembles such as the Alan Lewine Xtet, the PDXtet, the Red Hot Peppers, the AfroJazz Xplosion and others, Lewine has been an in-demand sideman for touring musicians and has worked with many of the great names in jazz over the years, including Eddie Daniels, Kenny Davern, Richie Cole, Joe Henderson, Clifford Jordan, Henry Threadgill, Vinnie Golia, Anita O'Day, Sheila Jordan, Dick Berk, Mel Brown (Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, etc.), Mose Allison, Butch Miles (Basie, Brubeck, Ella, etc.), Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Roy Hargrove, Jim Pepper and Bill Mays, and old masters like Gus Johnson, Sweets Edison (Count Basie), Mickey Roker (Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins etc.), Stephane Grapelli (Django Reinhart), Carl Fontana (Tonight Show Band) and many others. Once in the '80s he played duets with the immortal Charlie Haden, an experience that made a deep and lasting impression. Lewine minored in music composition as an undergrad and has also studied traditional Ghanaian (Ewe) percussion and performed with Obo Addy and Balinese gamelan with I Nyoman Suadin, flamenco with Julián Vaquero and Victor Monge, and traditional country Delta and Piedmont blues with Johnny Never (including as bassist on the 2012 release Johnny Never and the Soular Pimps: Never Home ). He has also played occasional bluegrass and “jazzgrass” gigs (remembering his childhood WV roots) with Sam Bush, Alan Munde, Slim Richey, Wayne Shrubsall and others.
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Phoenix Rising 100 Years Of Jazz - Benefit Concert For Ability360 on April 14
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Alan Lewine
Phoenix Rising 100 Years Of Jazz appears in concert Friday, April 14, 2023 at 7:30pm in the Piper Repertory Theater of the Mesa Arts Center at One Main Street in Mesa, AZ in the jny: Phoenix metro. Tickets are available at here for $15-49 with discounts for students, seniors and patrons with disabilities. Phoenix Rising 100 Years Of Jazz is the latest music project from internationally acclaimed jazz bassist Alan Lewine. Proceeds of this concert will benefit Ability360, Arizona's largest ...
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Travel To Cuba for the 35th Havana Jazz Plaza Festival
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Alan Lewine
jny: Philadelphia bassist Alan Lewine will bring his original compositions to one of the premiere jazz festivals in the Caribbean-Havana Cuba's 35th Jazz Plaza the week of January 14-20, 2020. American citizens can travel legally to Cuba and explore the culture and meet the wonderful people. Alan Lewine's Owlsong Productions in partnership with Cultural Island Travel has curated the perfect trip for a rate that is half the price of similar Cuban excursions. Havana’s Jazz Festival is the most exciting ...
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Sephardic Treasures Jazz / Flamenco At Jamey's House of Music (Landsdowne, PA) on January 11
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Alan Lewine
Live at Jamey's House of Music in Landsdowne, just outside jny: Philadelphia on January 11, 2020, Soprano Meets Bass will preview their soon-to-be-released album Sephardic Treasures for all to enjoy. Soprano Meets Bass, led by Alan Lewine and Ana María Ruimonte, presents these medieval tunes set in a modern jazz/flamenco world music fusion style with middle eastern influences. Secular songs dealing with the lives of refugees and extolling powerful women. You've never heard anything like this before! Soprano Meets Bass, ...
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Alan Lewine Xtet - Featured Artist at Media Jazz by Night Festival
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Michael Ricci
The new Alan Lewine Xtet debuts at Media Jazz By Night at 10:30pm for one extended concert set til midnite in the Forge Room at the Towne House Restaurant on the corner of Baltimore Pike and Veterans Square in Media, PA.
The Xtet performs straight ahead modern jazz featuring primarily Lewine'scompositions and some from bandmates, as well as the occasional arrangement of a standard by the likes of Ellington, Kern, Monk or Jobim. Alan Lewine on upright bass with Bill ...
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"Lewine possesses a dark sound, powerful and foreboding." - Jazz Scene "...a composer and a scholar in many of jazz's many- splendored forms..." - Wayne Thompson, Jazz Society of Oregon "...graceful bass work..." - Willamette Weekly SOPRANO MEETS CONTRABASS Another great review from the Music Librarian of the Philadelphia Free Library: "I just wanted to thank all of you for the amazing concert on Sunday. This was the first pop-up where, not only did we fill up all the seats we had out there, but we even exhausted the reserves I had hidden in the wings. And since people kept wanting to stay to listen, I had to call Buildings Department to bring up another cart of chairs mid-concert