Yosef Gutman

Yosef Gutman’s modest, soulful playing radiates a thoughtful beauty, a bright colored land of sound. A sound that’s drawn by the quill of the soul, tradition and world music influences, something completely unique and ever changing. A music that is rooted in Jerusalem but draws on global inspirations. "There is something so luminous, open-hearted and wholly unique about [the music of] Yosef Gutman" - Bill Milkowski, Downbeat. Raised on a remote farm in South Africa, about an hour outside Johannesburg, Levitt picked up the electric bass at age 16, inspired by Jaco Pastorius and Weather Report. Two years later, he received a scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied during the late 1990s alongside such budding talents as guitarist Lionel Loueke, drummers Ziv Ravitz and Kendrick Scott, and saxophonists Dayna Stephens and Walter Smith III and trumpeter Avishai Cohen. After moving to New York in the early 2000s, Levitt began gigging on the scene with the likes of Lionel Loueke, Ben Monder and Robert Stillman, But by 2007, he had become disillusioned. Teaching himself how to code, Levitt founded a technology startup. Then, in 2009, he moved to Jerusalem and put music on hold for a decade. He returned to music full-time in 2019 with the release of his debut recording, Chabad Al Hazam, a collection of nigunim (Hassidic melodies). “Those 10 years were powerful for me,” he said, “because they helped me un-learn music, and play again."