Composer-pianist-bandleader Omar Sosa’s musical trajectory traces the Diaspora from Cuba to Africa and Brazil; from Central America to Ecuador’s African-descent communities; from San Francisco and New York to Western Europe and the Mediterranean. True to his Afro-Cuban origins, Sosa fashions a spirited vision of uncompromising artistic generosity that embraces humanity at large.
Winner of the Smithsonian Associates’ lifetime achievement award, nominated six times for Grammy awards and twice for the BBC World Music Awards, Omar Sosa entwines the cultural traditions of Africa, Europe, and the Americas in a unique cosmopolitan voice. He articulates a brilliant, thoroughly contemporary global jazz idiom that assumes new form via a joyous, open-hearted, collaborative approach to musical creativity.
Whether as a soloist, ensemble player, or bandleader, Omar Sosa creates a music that is simultaneously his own and the world’s - reflecting an immersion in the batá drumming of Santería, the lyricism of the Cuban danzón, the Arabic lute or oud, North African percussion, European classical music, and world jazz. Sosa’s attentive and imaginative melding of sounds from around the world marks him as a courageous and original global artist for the twenty-first century.
Omar Sosa (b. April 10, 1965) was raised in Camagüey, Cuba’s largest inland city. His father, Sindulfo Sosa, taught history and philosophy, and was a school administrator. His mother, Maricusa Palacios, now retired and living in Havana, was a Telex operator for the electric utility. Sosa grew up listening to classical music and a range of popular artists including Nat King Cole, Orquesta Aragón, Benny Moré, Cachao, Frank Emilio Flynn, and Conjunto Folklórico Nacional. At age eight, Omar began studying percussion and marimba at the Camagüey conservatory; in Havana, as a teenager, he took up piano at the prestigious Escuela Nacional de Música, and rounded out his formal education at the Instituto Superior de Arte. Among his influences, Omar cites traditional Afro-Cuban music, European classical composers (including Chopin, Bartok, and Satie), Monk, Coltrane, Parker, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Chucho Valdés, and the pioneering Cuban jazz group Irakere.
Moving in 1993 to Quito, Ecuador, Omar immersed himself in the folkloric traditions of Esmeraldas, the northwest coast region whose African heritage includes the distinctive regional marimba tradition. He relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995, and soon invigorated the Latin jazz scene with his adventurous writing and percussive style. Subsequently, he has collaborated with artists from across Western Europe and all corners of the African continent.
Among Omar’s many associations are drummers and percussionists Steve Argüelles, Julio Barretto, Mino Cinelu, Miguel "Angá" Diaz, Marque Gilmore, Gustavo Ovalles, Adam Rudolph, John Santos, and Orestes Vilató; singers Lázaro Galarraga, Marta Galarraga, Xiomara Laugart, María Marquez, Sardinia’s Tenore San Gavino de Oniferi, Mola Sylla, Will Power, and Tim Eriksen; and woodwind masters Paquito D’Rivera, Luis Depestre, Leandro Saint-Hill, and Mark Weinstein.
Sosa works with an array of European, African, Arabic, Indian, Latin, and North American musicians. His recent projects include Across the Divide (Half Note, 2009), recorded live at the Blue Note in New York City,and Tales from the Earth (Otá, 2009), with flute player Mark Weinstein, featuring Omar on marimba and vibraphone. Other current major projects include his collaboration with Brazilian composer Jacques Morelenbaum and the North German Radio (NDR) Big Band, and the "Oda Africana" orchestra project. Exemplifying Duke Ellington’s highest accolade as a creator of music beyond category - manifest in some 24 recordings as a leader - Omar Sosa is a planetary musician in world music’s most all-embracing connotation.
Sosa’s is a thoroughly contemporary jazz idiom that celebrates the diversity of African voices on the continent and far beyond. Says Omar, "Africa and the Diaspora represent an unequaled musical source. I have tried to express the continent’s melodic contour, and its great rhythmic strength. Rhythm connects every people with the supreme Spirit. Every land has ways of calling the Spirits, to pull people together. Philosophically, through jazz - perhaps the Diaspora’s freest genre - we have sought to combine the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa in an expression of freedom, a celebration of the Diaspora, alive in our times." |
