Director: Richard and Ruth Slade

Cast: Hank Levy, Maynard Ferguson, Peter Erskine, Sal Salvador, the U.S. Army Ambassadors

Country: U.S.
Year: 2001
Running Time: 120 min
Format: video

Late great jazz composer and Towson University band director, Hank Levy, revolutionized the use of exotic time signatures in jazz music. He became a legend, having his music recorded by his peers, including jazz masters Don Ellis and Stan Kenton. This Telly Award winning documentary traces Levy's remarkable life and career, from growing up in Baltimore, to touring the jazz circuit, to gaining recognition for his exotic time signatures and compositions, to initiating the jazz program at Towson and conducting the school's award-winning jazz ensemble.

Filmmaker Richard Slade and his wife, writer Ruth Slade, spent five years making this documentary that covers more than a half-century of the life of a truly remarkable man. The Slades were lucky enough to finish this touching portrait before Levy's untimely passing last year. Included are excerpts from recently videotaped big band performances of Levy's music, often under his direction, plus many emotional recollections and insights, often humorous, with Hank himself, as well as other legends of the jazz world: Maynard Ferguson, Peter Erskine, Sal Salvador, Glen Stuart, Clem DeRosa, Bill Warfield, Paul Chiaravalle, Milcho Leviev, Fred Selden, Greg Smith and Audree Coke Kenton.

--Skizz Cyzyk

Presented By: Richard and Ruth Slade

In the 1950's, husband and wife team Ruth and Richard T. Slade (Dick) performed in dance combos around Washington, DC during Dick's stint in the Army. After the Army, Dick worked for DC's Capitol Film Lab doing film inspection, processing, printing and conforming (syncing & matching). He eventually moved on to work for NBC as an editor on a number of award-winning documentary units, magazine shows, and special news projects. In the meantime, Ruth studied Business, Accounting, Filmmaking and Scriptwriting. After 23 years at NBC, Dick retired from network news. He and Ruth formed Audio Visual Artists' (AVA) Productions, with Dick serving as President and Technical Director, and Ruth as Executive Producer and Creative Director. AVA produces work for clients, but also independently produces videos on subjects dear to the Slades' hearts. Their first production, Rails West, won top honors in the 1979 Los Angeles Travel Film Festival.