Leigh Howard Stevens

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The influence of Leigh Howard Stevens extends beyond the marimba technique that is forever linked with his name. He is a performer, educator, composer, publisher, and inventor, as well as a successful entrepreneur. Despite his relative youth (53 years old), Stevens fulfills all the requirements of being in the PAS Hall of Fame--and then some! Born in Orange, New Jersey on March 9, 1953, he graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood and was voted “most likely to succeed” in his class. As a young drummer, he studied with Gene Thayler, Glenn Weber, and Joe Morello. “Morello explained technique to me in terms of physiology and physics,” Stevens recalls. “It was a revelation.” Leigh played drumset in various rock and jazz bands in the New York metropolitan area during high school, including one called Tiger Tails--managed for a short time by an upperclassmen at his school named Max Weinberg, who later became the drummer with Bruce Springsteen. “I wanted to rock, and he wanted to become a musician,” Weinberg told New Jersey Monthly in 2004. “Leigh was a very serious kid--very directed, and not distracted.” Stevens planned to pursue a career as a drumset player when he auditioned for placement in a jazz band at the Eastman School of Music in the fall of 1971. “When I didn’t get into one of the top lab bands, I started to reevaluate what I wanted to do,” he recalls. His first exposure to marimba occurred when he was a junior in high school and realized he would have to pla

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