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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>To: Musicians and Jazzfans list; DJML<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>From: Norman Vickers, Jazz Pensacola<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>This video of Ellington’s recording of “The Mooche” brought to mind good friends Bill Gottlieb and Floyd Levin .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>The photo of Ellington in his dressing room was taken by jazz photographer/writer Bill Gottlieb. ( a copy, gift from Gottlieb, hangs in my home)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Also, the photo of Barney Bigard—also shown on the video—reminded me of Floyd Levin. Floyd was a most interesting man. He followed the New Orleans musicians who came to the West Coast—including Kid Ory. In clarinetist Joe Darensbourg’s biography, Floyd is mentioned in several places—including going crawfishing in the streams with the New Orleans musicians for their crawfish meal. Floyd befriended Barney Bigard and after Bigard’s death, the widow Bigard gave his clarinet to Floyd, who had it mounted and displayed on a wall. In Bigard’s book, there’s a 1950s photo of Floyd and some musicians standing outside an airliner before taking off for a European concert tour.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>I have attached Floyd’s obituary from Los Angeles times for information. Floyd has never gotten proper credit, in my opinion, for his role in commissioning and production of the Armstrong statue which stands in New Orleans’ Armstrong park.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>It was my pleasure to have known and been befriended by both Levin and Gottlieb. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Thanks for listenin’!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Norman <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>With the death of violinist and bandleader Andy Preer in 1927, Harlem's Cotton Club was left devoid of a house band.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This unfortunate event provided a young<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Duke Ellington with a once in a lifetime career launching opportunity taking up a residency that would propel his band to superstardom.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Recording:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.20sjazz.com/page/28097.html">http://www.20sjazz.com/page/28097.html</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Thanks!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Enjoy!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:3.75pt;line-height:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'><br>Obituaries<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:18.75pt;mso-line-height-alt:18.75pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:19.0pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>Floyd Levin, 84; influential jazz journalist and historian<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><b><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb/05"><span style='color:black;text-decoration:none'>February 05, 2007</span></a></span></b><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:#666666;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'>|</span><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'>Dennis McLellan</span><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'> | </span><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in'>Times Staff Writer</span><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><table class=MsoNormalTable border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=2 style='width:1.3pt'><tr><td width=1 nowrap valign=bottom style='width:1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:15.0pt;vertical-align:top'><span style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#4D4D4D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></td><td width=0 nowrap valign=bottom style='width:.3pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:15.0pt;vertical-align:top'><span style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#4D4D4D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></td></tr></table><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>For 40 years, from 1947 to 1987, Floyd Levin owned a downtown Los Angeles textile manufacturing company that made tablecloths, aprons, toaster and barbecue covers, and other housewares.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>But Levin also had an abiding passion for jazz, and for nearly two decades longer than the four he spent at Parvin Manufacturing Co. he had a second career as a jazz journalist and historian.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>He was on a first-name basis with musical greats such as Louis Armstrong, in whose honor Levin led a fundraising campaign to erect a statue of the legendary jazz trumpeter in his hometown of New Orleans.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>Levin died Jan. 29 of a heart attack at his home in Studio City, said his grandson, Marc Levin. He was 84.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-line-height-alt:.75pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'><img border=0 width=1 height=1 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.gif@01D1956E.FE5883D0" alt="http://articles.latimes.com/images/pixel.gif"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>Beginning with his first published article in 1949 -- on trombonist Edward "Kid" Ory in Melody Maker -- and continuing up to his death, Levin wrote hundreds of reviews and profiles that appeared in such publications as Jazz Journal, Metronome and Down Beat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>The author of "Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians," a 2000 book published by the University of California Press, Levin also conducted scores of oral interviews with jazz musicians that he donated to the Smithsonian Institution and to the jazz archive at Tulane University in New Orleans.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>"Although he was very good friends with Louis Armstrong and he wrote about other giants like Duke Ellington and Count Basie, he was always interested in the underdog, the guy who very few other people knew about but who played a very significant role in music," said Dan Del Fiorentino, historian for the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, Calif.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>In 1949, Levin co-founded the Southern California Hot Jazz Society, the second oldest jazz appreciation club in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>Levin's visit to New Orleans in the late 1960s led to his efforts to honor Armstrong with a statue. "He was on a tour bus and there was no mention of Louis Armstrong or his contribution to the city," Marc Levin said. "He, at that moment, decided that was an injustice to Louis Armstrong and started a fundraising campaign on that bus."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>As a major fundraiser for the statue in 1970, Levin produced a 70th birthday party for Armstrong at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>Emceed by songwriter-musician Hoagy Carmichael, the onstage birthday bash before a near-capacity crowd of 6,000 included Armstrong's reminiscences as a slide show chronicled his life and an array of traditionalist musicians played the music that represented the various phases of his career.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>The memorable musical evening also featured songs by Sarah Vaughan and other artists, a six-tiered, 800-pound, 11-foot-tall birthday cake and several songs sung by Armstrong himself, who led the crowd in a sing-along rendition of "Hello, Dolly!" as midnight approached and July 3 turned into the Fourth of July, his birthday.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>"I've had a lot of wonderful honors in my life," Armstrong said when it was over, "but tonight has been the biggest thrill of all."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>Then, in what then-Times critic Leonard Feather wrote "was a rare display of offstage emotion," Armstrong kissed Levin on the cheek.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"inherit","serif";color:black'>Armstrong died in 1971, but Levin continued to raise funds for the statue. Among the donors was Bing Crosby, who provided an urgently needed $10,000 for the statue's completion in time to be unveiled, on a flatbed truck, in New Orleans during national television coverage of the nation's bicentennial celebration on July 4, 1976.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:11.25pt;line-height:15.0pt;background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'> --End--<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>