Biography
5 April 1926, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 19 April 2005, Van Nuys, California, USA. After working as a professional heavyweight boxer and part-time drummer in his home town, Levey moved to New York while still in his teens. Abandoning boxing and concentrating on drumming, he was soon in great demand. He had already gigged with Dizzy Gillespie in Philadelphia and worked with him again, also playing in bebop bands such as those led by Oscar Pettiford, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins and George Shearing. In 1945, he was a member of the remarkable band co-led by Gillespie and Parker, of which the other members were Al Haig and Ray Brown (and sometimes Milt Jackson and Eli ‘Lucky’ Thompson), which took the bebop message around the USA. Perhaps the most notable point on the tour was Billy Berg’s nightclub in Los Angeles, an engagement which proved to be the catalyst for the creation of the west coast school of bebop. In the late 40s Levey played in...
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