The Sun Sings to Hashem

With The Sun Sings to Hashem, bassist Yosef-Gutman Levitt offers a nearly all-instrumental companion to the more vocal-oriented The Moon Sings to Hashem. Yet the conceptual “glue” is the same: both albums make up Levitt’s musical tone parallel — as Duke Ellington might call it — to an anonymous ancient text called Perek Shira or “chapter of song.” This mysterious text lists 84 elements of the natural world and a gives a matching biblical passage for each. The idea is that the natural world conveys lessons for philosophy and ethics, and through Perek Shira we can hear the “song” of the natural world and its guidance for life.

The repertoire is drawn from a compendium of over 500 nigunim — spiritual wordless melodies — composed by Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh. These are deep and heartfelt performances of traditional substance from Jewish Hasidic culture, yet the music speaks to all human hearts in its subtlety and melodic resonance.

While The Moon Sings to Hashem features Levitt on vocals as well as bass (with Rebbe Raz Hartman joining as a guest), The Sun Sings to Hashem contains only one vocal track, “Bar Yochai,” sung by special guest Yair Tsabari. Again Levitt casts a wide net in terms of musical influences, with traces of South African, Caribbean, European, Middle Eastern, Moroccan and Yemenite as well as American pop and folk reference points. There’s an emphasis on infectious, locked-in grooves and rhythms with plaintive melodies, many of them articulated by Levitt on the five-string acoustic bass guitar, his signature instrument.

Producer and arranger Gilad Ronen plays beautifully on flute, tenor, baritone and soprano saxophones as well as melodica, joining a cast that also includes percussionists Yshai Afterman and Yitzhak Attias, guitarist Yogev Cohen and keyboardist Achiya Asher Cohen Alloro.