Stan Levey, Jazz Heavyweight: The Authorized Biography

In a straightforward style, Hayde (The Mafia and the Machine) tells the story of Stan Levey, a self-taught bebop drummer whose life is truly the stuff of legend. The tale, which opens a striking foreword by Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, concerns a scrappy Jewish kid of North Philadelphia, the child a mobbed-up boxing-manager father and a musically inclined mother who encouraged her son in his interests. His early years seem propelled by a desire to play the drums like nobody ever had, and his driving style provided a rhythmic backdrop for stars such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Coleman Hawkins, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Barbra Streisand. Levey boxed professionally for a time before Parker introduced him to drugs; the latter eventually led to a two-year stint in prison, which Hayde handles without sensationalism. Levey was a fixture among the Big Apple beboppers and a prime mover on the West Coast scene and Hollywood sessions, and Hayde's account of his exploits takes readers beyond jazz icons and celebrities into fascinating anecdotes, personal struggles, and a truly charmed life. (Mar.)