Omar Sosa Interview
Cuban Native To Fuse Jazz and World Music Live at Purdue University
Omar Sosa won't call legendarily virtuosic jazz pianist Thelonious Monk an idol. Given the reverential tone in Sosa's husky voice when discussing Monk, Sosa's term seems far more apt: He calls him a "spiritual guru."
"Can you imagine how big Monk is for me when the name of my son is Lonious?" says Sosa, 43. "The way he used to play, but also how he approached and wrote the music, and the way he attached life to it. He always gave me the force to continue to move on."
As a modern-day bandleader, composer and pianist, Sosa shares Monk's thrilling sense of the unpredictably unorthodox. Jazz and Afro-Cuban clave grooves are constants in the cross-continental concoctions Sosa conjures up.
Latin rumbas shimmy up to European folk. Upright bass and sample scratches are strange bedfellows. It's earned Sosa Grammy nominations and a Smithsonian Institution lifetime achievement award for promoting Latin music in America.
Afreecanos Draws From, Expands Upon, Intercontinental Traditions
Sosa's latest group and CD share a name - Afreecanos - and the percussive project blends African and Latin traditions with a host of world-music surprises.
"I always wanted to go to the roots of (Afro-Cuban music), and what better way than to look in Africa?" Sosa says. "The more I learn of their tradition, the more I learn of mine."
On Light in the Sky, electronic squiggles collide with chanting, acoustic guitar and throaty flute sounds. Babalada incorporates full-on funk. Ollu explodes into bright horn bursts from a bluesy-tribal stomp. It's contemplative and playful, all at once.
"The way I approach jazz as a philosophy, I can move in any direction I want," Sosa says. "I want (collaborators) to bring their own freedom, home, tradition and soul."
Cuban Native's Migration To Percussion and Piano Opened Musical Range
That path began in Camaguey, Cuba, where Sosa was born and raised. Music in his home included Pacho Alonso's Pilon-style Afro-Cuban grooves, Nat King Cole's songbook standards and classical music.
Sosa's own musical career started on cello. When a teacher said Sosa's hands were, in Sosa's words, "too small," the 8-year-old shifted to percussion.
"When you have rhythm, you have the groove," Sosa says. "Not everybody has the groove. Everybody can feel the groove, but not everybody has the groove. When I started to study percussion, it really opened up my musical range."
As a teen, Sosa studied piano at a Havana conservatory, where jazz intoxicated him.
"What a musician looks for in school is music with some melody, groove, rhythm and, at the same time, expression," Sosa says. "Jazz was the only music I found to have all those elements."
Sosa Says He Might Need Second Life To Do All He Wants
Looking at Sosa's musical melting-pot history, it seems there's no cultural chord he hasn't stricken. But his travels are far from over.
"I haven't done anything yet," Sosa says. "If a second life is true, I'm going to come out in somebody's body and continue the mission of bringing musical elements from the whole entire world to the people. The longer we play in this world, the cleaner the air will be. Always something new, always something new."
Ticket Information For Omar Sosa at Purdue University
The Omar Sosa Afreecanos Quartet will perform at 8 p.m. Oct. 18 in Loeb Playhouse at Purdue University's Stewart Center, 128 Memorial Mall, West Lafayette, Ind.
Tickets are $25 for adults and $19 for children 18 and younger, Purdue students and Ivy Tech Lafayette students. Tickets are available: at Stewart Center and Elliott Hall of Music (712 Third St., West Lafayette, Ind.) box offices; by calling (765) 494-3933 or (800) 914-7469; or through Ticketmaster.
Omar Sosa
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