Pete Levin
"Gil Evans would want us to play the chart, but to also bring something of ourselves to our part. We were in Gil's band for a reason - because he liked something about our individual playing and he wanted us to bring that out."
Pete has played pretty much every keyboard instrument in every possible musical setting and made a successful living from it for decades. 15 years of that career was spent playing piano and synthesizer for Gil Evans.
Much of our conversation centered around his observations and experiences with Gil and his great band at New York’s Sweet Basil. There’s a lot to learn from Gil including an openness to the individual artist and allowing them to be themselves rather than conforming them to the average sum of the musical collective.