Perfect Traveler Yosef Gutman

• 1 Channel Small 03:16
• 2 Dror Yikra 03:43
• 3 Modeh Ani 03:59
• 4 Nigun 01:59
• 5 Big Hug 02:58
• 6 Where Falling Becomes Flying 03:14
• 7 Hareshut 02:20
• 8 I Want To Be More 02:45
• 9 Hodu 05:12
• 10 Nin'alu 04:10
• 11 Forward 03:37
• 12 From the Narrows 03:59
• 13 Piano Solo 02:40
• 14 Contemplation 03:01
• Total Runtime 46:53

Info zu Perfect Traveler

On Upside Down Mountain, Levitt’s first trio recording, he shares with the world what he has drawn out of his primary instrument, the acoustic bass guitar: a warm, singing, bell-like high-register sound of his own, with a focus on simple, direct, endlessly expressive melodies.

The title Upside Down Mountain, according to Levitt, refers to “a story of a love so great, it’s as if a mountain is being held over our heads that at any time could be dropped — a love that's compelling and leaves no room for even a shadow of a doubt.”

Partnering with Omri Mor (piano) and Ofri Nehemya (drums) on this set of original pieces, Levitt plays with a striking clarity and resolve as the trio’s frequent lead melodic voice. He plays what serves the music and the flowing, interactive rhythms of the trio. The result is a sound of joy and fulfilment, a clear and honest trio chemistry that reveals the essence of Levitt’s musical gift.

Mor, with his emotional intelligence and organic apprehension of style, offers hints of Moroccan-Andalusian vocabulary and at times even makes the piano sound like a kora. Nehemya, whose high-profile sideman credits include Shai Maestro, Avishai Cohen (bass), Omer Avital, Eli Degibri and more, brings a musical maturity and vital sense of minimalism to the project.

Levitt considers himself more an improviser than a composer. He conceived all the pieces for Upside Down Mountain in a single sitting, improvising “whatever flowed freely from my heart without thinking, editing or perfecting. I got my sound recorder ready and improvised for a few minutes, caught something, recorded it, named it. After a few hours I had material for an album and I sent it to my co-producer Gilad Ronen, who made sense of it.” When it came time to capture the finished product, magic began to flow. “I was flying the entire four days of recording,” Levitt recalls. “I was flying, my soul was alive.”

Yosef Gutman, acoustic bass guitar
Omri Mor, piano
Ofri Nehemya, drums

Yosef Gutman Levitt
was born in 1979 in South Africa, where he grew up on a remote farm in the Knoppieslaagte area, about an hour outside Johannesburg. This rural upbringing provided him with both solitude and space that would later influence his musical sensibilities. He began music lessons at an early age but abandoned the piano in favor of skateboarding at age 11.

At 16, inspired by Jaco Pastorius and Weather Report, Yosef Gutman rekindled his passion for music and picked up the electric bass guitar. At 18, he submitted a recording of his arrangement of the South African National Anthem to Berklee College of Music in Boston, which subsequently offered him a scholarship.

Arriving at Berklee College in 1998, Yosef Gutman studied alongside budding talents such as guitarist Lionel Loueke, drummers Ferenc Nemeth, Ziv Ravitz, and Kendrick Scott, and saxophonists Dayna Stephens and Walter Smith III. During this formative period, he also developed a close friendship with his long-time production partner, Gilad Ronen.

In New York, Yosef Gutman performed with notable musicians including Lionel Loueke, Ben Monder, and Robert Stillman. By 2007, he had stepped away from music, and in 2009, moved to Jerusalem, where he currently resides with his wife and eight children. This decade-long hiatus would later inform his unique approach to composition when he eventually returned to music.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet