We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joshua Levinson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Joshua, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I recently retired from a 24-year career as a music teacher with the New York City Department of Education. The decision to teach was mostly based on the desire to live a more stable life: steady income and the promise of life-long healthcare and a decent pension. Yes, it was a decision based on pragmatism, but it followed many years of struggling to make money as a musician in New York. Retirement coincided with Covid and just when I had completed my fifth CD in March of 2020 all music-making stopped. I was unable to have a CD release performance for “Dusk,” and did not have any rehearsals or performances with my sextet until 2021, when I had a residency at a new club in Brooklyn called The Salon.
When that ended, I was unsure which direction to take. I began to work on a big band piece that I had created in college some 30 years before. I studied big band arranging with well-known teacher and composer Andy Farber (Julliard and Purchase College professor) and even though I had been composing for small groups for quite some time, it seemed like I knew nothing of the true art and craft of composing until I began to learn what it took to write for a large ensemble. I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to hear my music played by a smaller-sized big band led by Carol Sudhalter, a baritone saxophonist/flautist who I had been playing with for many years. We performed my now three decades arrangement of Horace Silver’s composition, “Peace,” and although not perfect, it was still a thrill to hear it.
Subsequently, I arranged “Woodstock,” a piece by Joni Mitchell that I have loved since I was a teen. I used her melody and constructed quite a different framework, consisting of a completely different set of harmonic changes and new rhythmic foundation. We performed my arrangement of “Woodstock” and I found that it was even more satisfying to hear that work come to fruition than my arrangement of “Peace,” in which I had used Horace Silver’s amazing composition to explore new variations on his theme.
“Woodstock” was much more ambitious. I could tell that the musicians playing this arrangement were excited by what I had done to the work. The success of “Woodstock” inspired me to attempt to compose more original pieces of music for a large ensemble.
I began to compose big band arrangements of my originals for sextet in late 2021. Here is where the risk comes in: How do I get a group of 17 musicians (standard big band format) together to play my music? Where do I do this? How much will it cost to pay for rehearsal space in New York City? Do I need to pay the musicians?
All those were difficult seemingly impossible parts to the goal of just hearing my music played by real musicians. It turned out, they were not impossible. I found a rehearsal space that cost a lot, but was a great space to have a big band rehearsal in. I called many of my musician friends to come and play, knowing it would be impossible to pay them anything to rehearse, and many answered my
calls positively and with love and a willingness to help me achieve my goals of simply hearing my music played. My dream of writing for a big band had become a doable (albeit somewhat difficult) reality.

Joshua, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been a student of music my whole life, beginning at the age of four studying piano with my mother, Alice Levinson. At seven, I began attending Third Street Music School where I continued piano lessons with famed teacher and pianist Leonard Shure. I stopped studying piano at the age of 12 and did not pick up an instrument until I went to John Dewey High School where I began playing the trumpet. I became enamored with the instrument after hearing Dewey student Elliot Goldenthal (now world-renowned composer of movie scores) play “Oh When the Saints Go Marching In.” I began private lessons with Martin Levine one of the teachers at Dewey. I loved playing all the different genres afforded students in high school: classical, Broadway show music, brass Ensemble, and big band.
After high school, I played trumpet with several funk bands in and around New York City, going on tour with one for about a year. I attended CCNY where I attained my BFA in 1985, majoring in jazz performance studies and working privately with trumpet great Jimmy Maxwell.
Playing in Salsa and Merengue bands was fun and a decent way to make money in NY in those times, but it was quite enervating and difficult to sustain the kind of energy one needs to play gigs often beginning at 1AM and ending at 5 or 6 A.M. I was feeling unfulfilled musically and creatively and began to think about an alternative to this way of life. I applied and was accepted by Hunter College to get a master’s degree which I received in 1995 to teach English. Ultimately, the time was not right to become an English teacher because of a hiring freeze, but I got lucky securing a job teaching music which I continued for 24 years in three schools in the Bronx.
I have always loved the trumpet (despite its innate difficulties) and began composing music in 1987. I began leading my own sextet then septet and have played many venues mostly in the tristate area. I am well versed in all kinds of music and have had much experience playing jazz, classical, funk, and Latin. I am a good reader and can be relied upon to do well in whatever context I am playing in. My major asset now is my creativity and my love for music of all types. I have an ability to play well and have been honored to share the stage with many great musicians.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I have always been a person who is deeply satisfied with the process of making art, the journey one takes when being creative. I have never been too focused on where it leads and what the end result is, to a fault perhaps, but that ability to focus on the moment is what helps me be creative and also gives me pleasure. I have always believed that although there is an I/thou relationship between artist and listener, viewer, or reader, the chief pleasure I get from writing a piece of music is that it makes me happy, makes me feel good, makes me think, or want to move my body. The other aspect I love about being creative is something I am not too good at in real life: decision making. To me, making art is a constant struggle (in a positive way) to choose which path to take. We can go here, or there, choose this bass line or that bass line, opt for some strange dissonant chords or choose more consonant and less unexpected chords. We can take the music far out or rein it in, we can shape a melody in whatever way we choose. This has been one of the most thrilling revelations to me, that I in essence control my own destiny in art.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My need to pivot came during Covid which affected the world on so many levels. When the pandemic came as I noted earlier, I had just completed my 5th CD as a leader and was faced with not having a CD release party, not rehearsing or performing my newest compositions, and not playing music with other musicians which is my favorite aspect of being a musician. I was lucky enough to be able to perform at The Salon on a weekly basis, but when that ended, I was again faced with the question, ‘What’s next in my artistic life?’
Arranging and composing for a large ensemble was something I never thought I could do, but it was Andy Farber
who encouraged me to join the BMI-sponsored group of arrangers and composers that he co-leads with Alan Ferber. There, I began to study arranging with these two leaders where we gained their expertise and as a group, we offered critiques to one another. This proved vital to my growth, as it gave me a weekly motivation to work on various arrangements for a large ensemble. The best part was hearing my notes,
my work, played by one of the best bands in the land, created by BMI specifically to play our new arrangements. What a thrill it has been, to hear my own and other arrangers’ growth, meet and work with fellow students and to learn from master arrangers and
composers Andy Farber and Alan Ferber in a very safe setting where people receive support and ideas from other composers. I have performed twice this summer with my own big band, the Josh Levinson Soul & Swing Ensemble. We play from a now 32-
piece library of my work completed in the last two years. I feel as if I have been reborn. I love having this palate of colors to choose from, and as much as I loved arranging my music for smaller ensembles, this way of presenting my music is so much more satisfying. I continue to want myself to feel something when experiencing my music, to dance in my head and in my body to my music, and hopefully to inspire others to think and feel and dance in their own heads and bodies.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: Josh Levinson Sextet
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-levinson-44607727/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChMoR8NZC9kRKa8hdY-14fQ