![]() ![]() “For example, if you listen to his 2001 song ‘Strictly Ballroom,’ it’s very different. We went over everything together, but the truth is the songs became new entities on this project. ![]() “Writing lyrics after the music has been written is a different skill set with its own challenges,” she said. First Levy asked McNeil to suggest songs of his that might lend themselves to lyrics. McNeil and Levy collaborated closely on Lose My Number. ![]() She recently won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest for her pandemic-era children’s song, “Wash My Hands.” Her own music embraces swing and American songbook tradition, with lyrics that are wry, occasionally caustic, yet often wistfully romantic. Levy comes from a family of writers her three previous albums, praised by critics, have mostly featured her own songs. “He takes complex ideas from theory and turns them into astute melodies.” McNeil was a mentor to Levy at the New England Conservatory and produced her first two albums, Lonely City and Cities Between Us. “They’re still modern and challenging,” she added, even though many of them were written in the late ’70s and ’80s. “John’s songs always tell a story,” Levy, 30, said via FaceTime from her Manhattan apartment. His post-bop aesthetic is one part cool jazz, one part free jazz his strong melodies are dependably matched to unusual, occasionally outré harmonies and rhythmic curveballs. McNeil, a stalwart of the New York jazz scene, played with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Horace Silver Quintet, and Gerry Mulligan before establishing his own bands. Levy’s lyrics have a mordantly funny, feminist slant: “You may think that I’m the one/But I can promise you that I’m no fun, no/Lose my number/Lose it!/Don’t you dare call me up on the phone.” She not only masters the tune’s odd intervals and meters, but also adds a degree of wit and cheek uncommon in the often self-serious jazz world. That didn’t faze the jazz singer and songwriter Allegra Levy, who wrote lyrics to it and eight other McNeil instrumentals for her latest album, Lose My Number (SteepleChase). “The song is negative, but it’s happy,” he said. As in some of Coleman’s music, “there’s this happy triad kind of thing going on,” even though the triads “don’t have normal relationships-they go up a whole step, down a major third, up a whole step,” zooming around the song’s structure like a pinball. McNeil, 72, likens the composition to something by Ornette Coleman. I never even thought about putting words to it.” “It’s the opposite of a love song, a no-love-lost song,” McNeil said recently. When John McNeil, the esteemed trumpeter/composer, recorded his original tune “Lose My Number” in 2001, it had no lyrics. The vocalist writes lyrics to the trumpeter's instrumentals on her new album Steve Futterman JazzTimes Allegra Levy Puts Words to John McNeil’s Music McNeil’s trumpet work on the ballad “Zephyr”-one of his three instrumental contributions to the album-is a gentle seal of approval. The result, “Lose My Number: Allegra Levy Sings John McNeil,” is a showcase for Levy’s modestly scaled but agile vocalizing and her gift for sculpting words, and for McNeil’s far too neglected abilities as a melodic architect. The vocalist Allegra Levy, apparently one of McNeil’s biggest fans, has put her own shrewd lyrics to nine of McNeil’s engaging compositions. When the secret history of postwar jazz is finally written, John McNeil-a trumpeter, composer, and bandleader whose unclassifiable stylistic bent has made him a hero to his coterie of listeners and an odd man out to the mainstream-may merit his own chapter. NIGHT LIFE Allegra Levy: “Lose My Number” “Levy has a fresh voice, sultry at times, wispy at other times but always involved with the lyrics…She is, or should be one of The jazz singers. “The truly lovely and even daring thing about Allegra Levy is just how little attention she directs at herself, despite her rhythmic, harmonic and improvisatory skills…a fine collection by a most talented singer.”-Donald Elfman, New York City Jazz Record “Cleverly conceptualized and elegantly executed…a cohesive set of excellent performances that will inspire listeners to take a meaningful glance up at that shining orb with renewed wonder.”-Bobby Reed, DownBeat Editor’s Pick
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