ArtistInfo

Marty Levitt

cl, sax,
Folk, Pop and World

Marty Levitt (1930-2008) was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a well-respected musician in the Yiddish Theatre and Jewish Music scene. His mother had come to the United States from Poland a few years before. Marty started booking his own gigs at age seventeen. This included weddings, bar mitzvahs, and many dinners for Jewish organizations or "landshaftn." He worked with such notables as Abe Schwartz, Nathan Ritholz, and many others. He also began working the Catskills every summer starting in 1947. Marty remained a busy bandleader in Brooklyn, as well as in Jewish nightclubs on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In 1956 a young singer named Harriet Kane auditioned for Marty's band. They married the next year. Together they made a record for the Tikva label in 1959 called "Party Memories." Marty followed with an instrumental album called "Wedding Dances" in 1962, also for Tikva. During the late 1950s Marty saw the demand for Jewish music diminish. He incorporated more continental music into his repertoire. such as Polish tangos, Hungarian dances, Israeli folk songs, etc. Harriet learned to sing all this material in each specified language. This enabled them to become very popular with the Jews who had made it through the war. They were so busy that they stopped going to work each summer in the Catskills after the 1964 season. Marty still managed to sneak in a hora or a bulgar on every engagement. There were a few more recordings made in the 1960s, e.g. "Bar Mitzvah Favorites" in 1965, and "Marty Levitt goes Continental " in 1968. The Levitts continued to be busy into the 1970s and then recorded a couple of more albums. While working with Fran records Marty did "50 Chassidic Hits" in 1973 with a ten-piece band. This was followed by "A Jewish Wedding," which was an album narrated by radio star Art Raymond and arranged by Nat Brooks. The family moved to Florida in 1977. This was where Marty "reunited" with many of his clientele who had moved south. One of the things Marty did while in Florida was start a radio show. "Freilach Time" was an hour-long show which aired on Sunday mornings in Miami on radio station WDNA. Levitt used his extensive Jewish record collection to play on the air. Some featured acts were: The Feder Sisters, Jan Peerce, Dave Tarras and others. The show was produced solely on listener contributions and ran for two periods of time in 1980-81 as well as in 1982. This was also the beginning of the klezmer revival. Marty started arranging an album of klezmer music that he would record after moving back to Brooklyn in 1983. There were also some vocals by Harriet as well. These recordings were titled "King of the Klezmer," Volumes 1 and 2. In 1985 Harriet Kane passed away after a short battle with cancer. Marty slowed down his work a lot, as he knew she was irreplaceable. He did go on to record "Klezmer Wedding " in 1991, which featured his son Dave on trombone. Marty became a popular interview for ethnomusicologists studying klezmer music. He was quoted in many publications and provided old pictures to be used in some works as well. In later years he started to write many of these klezmer melodies to be preserved for future generations.

Instruments

• Clarinet
• Saxophone

Genres

• Folk
• Pop
• World
• Jazz

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