[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” image=”749″ img_size=”580×410″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]Jozi Levi, who\u2019s musical interest started -when he could even hardly speak- by humming along with the 45-rpm singles that his father used to bring back from Italy, was born when Istanbul used to be the \u201creal\u201d Istanbul.<\/p>\n
Along with being a true music lover, he also knew and loved to play in the streets in his childhood. But his \u2018real\u2019 meeting with music was when he started taking piano lessons at the age of 7. He was gifted; he could have kept on with classical music. However, he said goodbye to classical music and private piano lessons. He chose pop\/rock genres and started to play keyboards and organ. During the same period, his interest in music blossomed into passion and it begun to grow up towards percussion instruments being inspired especially by the music of Carlos Santana<\/strong>. And then, this passionate child debuted in his high school, \u201cEnglish High School\u201d with his band \u201cMini Monsters\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In his early years, he played with his good friends like Hakan Behlil, Batu Mutlugil,\u00a0B\u00fclent “Canavar” Atl\u0131o\u011flu,\u00a0Roni Adut, Deniz D\u00fcndar, Harun Kol\u00e7ak, Hamdi Demirel, S\u00fcleyman Ulagay, Rudolf <\/strong>ve Manfred Bergemann, \u00d6zkan U\u011fur, Galip Kay\u0131han <\/strong>on every possible occasion. When \u2018music\u2019 is your love, you cannot stick to one genre only. Jozi Levi was interested in Jazz, Brazilian and Latin music in his teenage years. He played \u201cFender Rhodes\u201d electric piano for five years during his higher education in the UK and so did in his first band in Turkey \u201cJazz Junior\u201d<\/strong>. He started collecting percussion instruments and tried to learn them on his own. Although he was an amateur musician, during the following years, he managed to perform in some music events in Istanbul, thanks to his extraversion. He met important musicians like the bassist Carlos Benavent<\/strong>, and the saxophonist Jorge Pardo <\/strong>of Paco de Lucia<\/strong>\u2019s band and had the chance to play with them, on one or two occasions.<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]U\u011fur Y\u00fccel<\/strong> has been the key in his life to turn Jozi\u2019s passion into a professional level. After taking part in U\u011fur Y\u00fccel & Sezen Aksu Show<\/strong> in 1992, Jozi had been a part of Kayahan<\/strong>\u2019s all concerts and some recordings for 3 years. Good things have kept happening… He met the Brazilian percussion master Cyro Baptista<\/strong> and pianist Marcos Silva <\/strong>coincidentally. They helped him to improve his Brazilian music knowledge and percussion playing techniques.<\/p>\n In 1996, Pasaporte Latino<\/strong> was launched together with Melis S\u00f6kmen, Erc\u00fcment Vural,<\/strong> and Tu\u011fba \u00d6nal<\/strong>. The band released an album and 2 music video clips, with its renewed members (Zeynep Casalini, Banu Kunt, Carlos Garcia Mayedo, Berna Anter, Serkan \u00d6zy\u0131lmaz, \u015eenova \u00dclker, Aycan Teztel, Mehmet Sezer, Cengiz Baysal, Volkan \u00d6ktem, Turgut Alp Beko\u011flu, Eylem Pelit, Erhan Akhan<\/strong>) in 2000.<\/p>\n In 2002, the members of the band split up for new challenges. During the same year, the co-founder and the percussionist of the band, Jozi, attended the Akbank Jazz Festival, and Istanbul Jazz Festival with Emin F\u0131nd\u0131ko\u011flu and Detant Project<\/strong>.<\/p>\n He participated in Volkan Konak, Kerem G\u00f6rsev, <\/strong>and Kenan Do\u011fulu<\/strong>\u2019s album works, adding them a pinch of Brazilian tastes.<\/p>\n Jozi played piano and percussion instruments for 5 years in Ayhan Sicimo\u011flu & Latin All Stars<\/strong>, a band that was launched in 2003. During this period, he had the chance to meet and play with worldwide musicians like percussionist Rodrigo Rodriguez<\/strong>, trumpeter Amik Guerra<\/strong>, singers Armando Miranda<\/strong> and, Frankie Morales<\/strong>, and violinist Alfredo de la Fe<\/strong>.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” image=”751″ img_size=”580×410″ alignment=”right”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” image=”750″ img_size=”580×410″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]In 2004 he co-founded the band, Cub@n-IST <\/strong>with his close friends Emir Ersoy, C\u00fcneyt Akg\u00fcn, Arda Baykurt, Cemil Tatl\u0131p\u0131nar, Tun\u00e7 \u00c7ak\u0131r<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Simultaneously, he took the leading part in the first Brazilian bloco, Bate Bumbo<\/strong>, in Turkey. He combined DJ playback music, Electronica, Latin House, Tribal House, and many more swingy styles with Brazilian music tastes. Later on, he returned to the fundamentals of the concept and organized shows in which he created unplugged repertories, consisting of only acoustic Brazilian Samba Batucada rhythms.<\/p>\n In the middle of 2008, he launched his Jozi Levi Brazil Project <\/strong>band in which he performs in styles of Bossa Nova, Pagode, Samba, MPB, and Bai\u00e3o. The band performed in several top venues of Istanbul, including the IKSV Istanbul Jazz Festival.<\/p>\n He started his corporate rhythm workshops for team building and arranged them for the most reputable companies and foundations in Turkey, as a moderator\/educator.<\/p>\n Since 2010 he has been producing and presenting his radio show Musica Brazileria<\/strong> at A\u00e7\u0131k Radyo FM 94,9.<\/p>\n In 2013, he was awarded as an Officer with Brasil\u2019s one of the most important honorific order, namely Ordem de Rio Branco <\/strong>for his support in spreading Brazilian music and culture in Turkey.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” image=”749″ img_size=”580×410″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]Jozi Levi, who\u2019s musical interest started -when he could even hardly speak- by humming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page_full.php","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jozilevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jozilevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jozilevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jozilevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jozilevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":52,"href":"https:\/\/jozilevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":957,"href":"https:\/\/jozilevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54\/revisions\/957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jozilevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}