Press
Representative Media Coverage & Reviews
The Jazz Review
“His improvisations weave in and out various thematic forways, spiced up with heaps and bounds of intuitive dialogues and subplots"
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"Levin demonstrates a wider musical vocabulary than that afforded by many contemporaries of this genre."
Cadence
"Levin plays a big toned tenor in the Coltrane school though his approach is very lyrical."
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Ike Levin demonstrates a sensitivity to and obvious knowledge of the free jazz landscape."
All About Jazz
“Soulful tenor phrases that move in and out of blistering cries and wails."
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"Levin speaks authoritatively on tenor...free from phrases erupt convincingly from his horn only to be calmed by ensuing gentle currents of melodiousness."
All Music Guide
"Ike Levin's big Texas tenor sound is filtered by the lens of post-moderism, but there is lyricism too, inherent in his playing reminiscent of the great swing and early bop soloists."
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"Collective improvisation is in the forefront."
Jazz Times
Levin is an intense, expressive player. His assymetrical phrasing and extensive use of pentatonic scales and melodies place him firmly under the ghostly wing of John Coltrane circa 1967."
One Final Note
"Levin shows adeptness in winding through the pianisms sometimes answering in call and response or choosing to just float above."
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"Ike Levin does not use a large arsenal of saxophone techniques. Instead, it comes down to his choices of the notes he plays. And it MAKES SENSE--It Fits."
Signal To Noise
"Levin demonstrates an able command of jazz-based balladry."
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"What is evident is his ability to easily and naturally move in and out of idiomatic playing--or rather, from one idiom (relatively straight ahead jazz) to another (free jazz) as if they were the most natural bedfellows."
East Bay Express
"According to Ike Levin, abstract highly improvisational brand of jazz is music that's trying to veer away from things that have been done before. Or cliches. But as he notes its not really free because you don't just play anything. Actually, there is a structure to it"
Ga-Zeta
"A strong, resourceful player who displays an inventive reservoir of musical ideas."
Jazz Word
"Levin shifts effortlessly between high octave multi-phonics into an almost Gene Ammonesque referenced bluesy motif..."