Pessi Levanto (b. 1973) hasn't stopped at any point of his career: he has constantly widened his job description to new fields of music. Levanto got excited about jazz music in a young age and was accepted to the jazz department of Sibelius Academy on his first try in 1994. Besides the jazzpiano lessons given by Jukkis Uotila and Jarmo Savolainen, Levanto studied composing and orchestration at the classical music department. Levanto took also private lessons from the American jazz legend Kenny Wheeler in New York in the mid-1990s that developped also Levanto's jazz pianism a lot. From Sibelius Academy Levanto graduated in 1999.

In the music life of Helsinki Levanto started to get more visibility in Groove Convention that was formed in 1993. The jazzfunkband of Levanto and drummer Sami Kuoppamäki worked for over ten years. Another band born from the funk-love of Levanto was Burn! whose first version had Pekka Lehti on bass and Teppo Mäkynen on drums. In the beginning of the 21st century bassist Timo Hirvonen replaced Lehti and Mäkynen was replaced by drummer Sami Kuoppamäki. When Levanto worked as the regional artist of Uusimaa in 2000-2004, Burn! performed a lot in Rytmihäiriöklubi that was programmed by Levanto.

Besides the electronic groups, Levanto has played the whole time in his own acoustic pianotrio as well. In 1996 this trio, Levanto, bassist Tuure Koski and drummer Tomi Salesvuo, recorded a radio tape of new versions of jazzstandards. Later the standards were replaced by the pianist's own compositions that were released on the album Pessi Levanto Trio (Impala 2000). In 2001 Levanto took over a new field of music as he composed a vocal jazz album for children, Taivaalliset tarinat - Sika myyttien maailmassa (Texicalli). The album, where Marjatta Levanto had written the lyrics and Julia Vuori had drawn the fabulous cover pictures of the Sika-character, was both a sale and a review success and a nominee for the Jazz Emma Prize. Later Levanto has composed much more children's music and music for films, tv-shows and advertisements.

Levanto performed as the young soloist for UMO Jazz Orchestra in January 1996 and featured as a pianist in the orchestra a few times in the late-1990s. In 2005 he won the Esko Linnavalli composition contest organized by UMO, the Finnish Big Band Association and the Imatra Big Band Festival, and in 2006 Levanto composed a whole concert series for UMO. In 2003 Levanto participated in the establishment of Vaja, the National Alliance of the Jazz Composers. The alliance organizes concerts where jazz composers can give their compositions to be performed by line-ups differing from the basic jazz instrumentation.

As a producer Levanto has worked for example on the debut album of Jenny Robson and on the album Sateenkaaren täällä puolen (Universal 2002). On the latter one the top Finnish schlager singers sang their own versions of classic jazz standards that Levanto had arranged and orchestrated.