BASSIST YOSEF GUTMAN LEVITT AND GUITARIST ITAY SHER HEARD WITH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ON THEIR NEW CO-LED RELEASE UNITY
Scheduled for Release August 30 2024
Itay Sher, nylon-string guitar, compositions, arrangements
Yosef Gutman Levitt, double bass & five-string acoustic bass, arrangements
Gilad Ronen, reeds, orchestral arranger, with chamber orchestra.
David Giat, drums
Produced by Yosef Gutman Levitt
Mixed by Richard King (Yo Yo Ma, Goat Rodeo Sessions)
Single “Way Back Home” releasing August 16, 2024
Focus Track “Nigun Gaaguim” releasing with full album August 30, 2024 from Soul Song Records
New Levitt collaborations in the pipeline with Peter Broderick,
Yonathan Avishai, Yagel Harush, more
“Reflective and possessing an exceptional clarity of feeling,
Levitt’s music settles the soul.”
— Mel Minter, Musically Speaking
Bassist and composer Yosef Gutman Levitt and Soul Song Records are pleased to share Unity, a stirring collaboration between Levitt and guitarist Itay Sher. Buoyed by the expansive sound of chamber orchestra (arranged by Levitt’s longtime musical partner Gilad Ronen), Levitt and Sher approach Hasidic Jewish nigunim (liturgical melodies) in a spirit of harmonic and improvisational exploration. Two original pieces by Sher, “The Way Back Home” and “Rain Melody,” complete this captivating program.
“My recordings are usually done in two-day sprints,” says Levitt, “but I really wanted to take my time with this project. Itay and I got together every Thursday afternoon and started making layers, different chord progressions that might give these nigunim a more modern sound. The melodies are kept intact, but the progressions shift and change. Traditionally, nigunim don’t even have chord progressions, so any accompaniment is typically as banal as possible, so as to be culturally apropos and not interfere.”
In Levitt and Sher’s vision, sounds and rhythms from other musical sources enter the picture, giving Unity an inviting, worldly quality that distinguishes the output of Soul Song Records overall. Levitt cites From Left to Right, an idiosyncratic 1971 release by Bill Evans, in which the jazz piano master augments his standard trio lineup with acoustic guitar, electric piano and a chamber ensemble conducted and arranged by Michael Leonard. Levitt also points to Erased Tapes recording artist Peter Broderick, whose 2023 single “Give It to the Sky” features a chamber-brass arrangement with the warm and rounded timbre of euphonium and French horn. (Levitt’s album-length collaboration with Broderick, also featuring Sher, pianist Yonathan Avishai and cellist Yoed Nir, is slated for release in early November 2024.)
With those reference points loosely in mind, Levitt and Ronen began to flesh out a musical world of their own, creating arrangements that slip between genres, from classical and Third Stream to ambient, folk and new acoustic music. This is an intimate and contemplative space, in which two beautiful acoustic instruments—Sher’s nylon-string guitar, Levitt’s five-string bass guitar by luthier Harvey Citron—meet in an elevated spiritual conversation.
“Tsama Lecha Nafshi” is a soulful nigun attributed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, explains Levitt. “The lyrics come from Psalm 63:2, expressing yearning for God: ‘My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You.’ This melody is often sung at Hasidic gatherings during the month of Elul and on the High Holy Days. The simple repetitive structure allows for deep spiritual reflection. Itay came up with a novel harmonic pattern that had a ‘camera obscura’ effect, inverting the color of the harmony and creating a sense of novelty for this piece. Because we wanted to focus on small segments of melodic content at a time, we divided these deep melodies into two parts.”
“Nigun Gaaguim” (“yearnings”), also presented in two parts, is a longform nigun from the Chabad repertoire, with additional sections that Levitt and Sher plan to revisit on a later recording. “This melody of yearning was a way for us to explore something deep, while presenting it to the listener in a way that’s easy on the ear, without too much gravity. Same yearning, but less weight.”
Some nigunim have taken on the names of the places and communities from which they originated, such as the two-part “Kremenchoger” nigun from Kremenchuk, Ukraine. Part 1, a more straightforward melodic rendering, is in D minor, while the reprise is in E minor, with Sher’s seasoned improvised lines heard against a lush orchestral framework.
“Sha’alu Shalom Yerushalayim,” or “pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” appeared in an earlier incarnation on Why Ten?, Levitt’s previous Soul Song album with jazz guitar great Gilad Hekselman. There it was titled “Nigun 551.” “Itay presented his own delicate version here,” says Levitt, “accompanied by Gilad Ronen’s beautiful arrangement. The narrative is simple, yet as with all these nigunim, a lot of depth and joy is lurking.”
Levitt, a religiously observant Jew, has endowed all his music with a sense of spiritual searching and depth, whether he is interpreting nigunim on such early releases as Ashreinu and Chabad Al Hazman or exploring original music in a more jazz-oriented setting on The World and Its People and Upside Down Mountain.
Levitt launched the Soul Song label with a set of core principles and values in mind: “The goal is to create music, and to create a label that stimulates others to do the same—to make their soul song. To create music that’s intimate, improvisational, with a profound honesty, stripping away anything that’s not needed. What’s important is that the music is inspired by something higher. I want to work with artists who are interested in getting to that place.” New Levitt collaborations are forthcoming with Peter Broderick, Yonathan Avishai, Yagel Harush, Didi Elinson and more.
Press photos by Ronen Goldman
