After more than three decades of silence, composer Alonzo Levister is making his return to the music scene. His composing, arranging, and orchestrating skills were well known and highly respected in the recording industry, Jazz, and Broadway Musical circles. He is one of the great American music talents of the 20th centrury, with a unique blend of classical and jazz idioms created in his double-bill of Oper'd Jazz and Jazz'd Opera - "2 FOR LOVE"
Poised for success via Broadway Producers Phillip Rose, David Merrick, Frank Loesser; E.B. Marks and Big Three (MGM) Music Publishers; arranger / producer at Motown/Jobete Music - NYC; an opera with the author of the hit play Raisin in the Sun; writing for Mingus and Miles, and "Touch Love" recorded by Johnny Hodges (Rippin' & Runnin' on Verve Records), also the CLIO Gold Award - Best Musical Theme of 1963 for ("Fur") Prell Shampoo, Benbon and Bowles agency. Then, he stopped.
DAN MORGENSTERN, Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University
"After 20 years of writing every kind of music, including symphonic, opera, musicals, jazz & commercial jingles, on the verge of success, something inside me said run like hell - the other way! I did. I became an expat in Tahiti. while living there teaching and writing, I was inspired to write "Tahiti Girl", recorded by the amazing pianist Roy Meriwether (available on CD Baby "Xtension"). Additionally, I worked on an opera "Slave Song" (originally written with libretto by the late Oscar Brown Jr. and performed at Howard University in the early 70s)."
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