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Marty Levitt



Marty Levitt
About Artist

Name: Marty Levitt

DOB: 1931

Place of birth: Brooklyn, NY

Currently resides in: Died 2008

Education: ---

Family: Married singer Harriet Kane, has one son David Levitt

Trademark look: Glasses and thin mustache

Stage name(s): None

Charities/causes:



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Biography

Marty Levitt was born in New York in 1930 and got his professional start in the late 1940s, working for violinist/band leader Abe Schwartz. Levitt came from a long line of professional Jewish musicians; he was the son on of famed klezmer trombonist Yankl "Jack" Levitt a noted Yiddish theater musician and member of the famed Boibriker Kapelle. With a wealth of talent in his own family to call on, Levitt early on made the leap to booking “club dates” (the New York musicians’ term for weddings and other events held in catering halls) under his own name. He would often hire his father and uncles as well as friends from other klezmer families such as trombonist Sammy Kutcher.
Levitt found a niche playing for more recent immigrants who had survived the Holocaust. The survivors, often referred to derisively as “grine” (“green,” as in “greenhorns” who were only recently off the boat), favored coterritorial Polish and Russian repertoire as well as cosmopolitan repertoire such as tangos and waltzes. Levitt’s mother taught his wife, Harriet Kane, to sing with the band in Russian and Polish, and Marty was known as the “Tango King.”
Levitt did not have a reputation as a great jazz player, and this probably limited his ability to penetrate the wider Jewish club date market. However, his bands remained popular amongst the landsmanshaftn, mutual aid societies organized by Jews emigrating from the same town, as he could draw upon a huge repertoire of freylekhs, shers and other Jewish material, much of which had been collected and transcribed by his father.

During the 1950s and 1960s Marty Levitt together with his wife, vocalist Harriet Kane, had one of New York's most popular Jewish wedding orchestras regularly featuring an eight musician bandstand. The several LPs he recorded at this time for Tikva, Fiesta and other indie labels, picture a tuxedoed Levitt all pencil thin mustachios and horn rimmed glasses holding his clarinet at a rakish angle. Though not one of the best of the old line klezmer clarinetists, Marty Levitt commanded a unique and atypical repertoire and had a surprisingly literate knowledge of the history of klezmer music and its folklore. It was only his continual resistance to becoming part of the klezmer revival which kept him from being celebrated by a new generation of klezmer afficianados.

Marty Levitt died of lung cancer and lymphoma in 2008. He was 77 and lived in Brooklyn, New York.He is survived by a son, David, himself an outstanding jazz and klezmer trombonist.

Career Highlights
Background in music: His grandfather was a violinist and his father played many instruments

Instruments: Clarinet

How he got his start: Booking club dates for the musicans in his family


Big break: Playing for recent immigrants


Musical icons/influences:

Best known for: Wedding Dances

Awards: ---

Current projects: ---


Cultural Impact
  • His grandfather was a violinist named Levinsky, whose sons Lou Levinn, and Frank, Phil and Jack Levitt carried on the family trade. Lou and Frank were well-known trumpeters. While Lou was regarded as the leading Jewish trumpet virtuoso of his generation and played and recorded often with clarinetist Dave Tarras, Frank actually had a reputation as a better Jewish stylist. Marty’s father Jack was a multi-instrumentalist who played trombone with leading ensembles such as Cherniavsky’s Orchestra and the Boiberiker Kapelye.
  • The Levitt family, along with a small number of other families such as the Beckermans, Kutchers, Farbermans and Brandweins, represented the major klezmer dynasties in New York.

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