Talking on his manager’s cell phone from somewhere in
Washington, D.C., at noon last Saturday, Afro-Cuban jazz pianist
and composer Omar Sosa sounded tired. His voice, worn out and husky
with a heavy Cuban accent, made it hard to decipher what he was
saying at times.
Sosa, who tours nine months of the year, was in D.C. to kick off
his week-long North American tour, which comes to Royce Hall on
Saturday. He will be joined in his UCLA Live performance by rapper
Will Power.
Like any touring jazz artist, the Cuban musician lives for
performing live. He sees each performance as both his first and
last. He is known for making audience members want to cry with his
introspective ballads and want to dance to his upbeat Afro-Cuban
grooves.
But touring comes at a cost. Asked where he was performing that
night, Sosa let out a huge sigh.
“Ooph! Where I am performing … let me look (at) the
(date) book,” he said. “Most of the time, I don’t
know. We (are playing) in Washington, Lisner Auditorium.”
When asked in which countries he’s toured with Power, Sosa
sounded similarly overwhelmed.
“Japan, Europe, Morocco, Tunisia …” he said.
While his rigorous touring schedule may make Sosa, 40, sound
older than he actually is, Power calls him “a tireless
cat” whose forte is the stage.
“He’s an incredibly powerful, beautiful, ingenious
performer,” Power said. “He doesn’t hold anything
back. He’s like complete, pure love on stage. And it’s
rare that you see any jazz musicians like that anymore because
they’re so reserved. Whatever the spirit tells him to do,
he’ll do it. We’ve brought children up on
stage.”
Music has been Sosa’s life since early childhood in
Camaguey, Cuba, when his father used to play vinyl records for the
family on Sunday afternoons. He still vividly remembers hearing Nat
King Cole’s “Mona Lisa.”
Now a father himself, touring has gotten harder for Sosa in the
past few years because of the time away from his family. He
strongly believes in separating his personal life and professional
life, so his 3-year-old son and 7-month-old daughter stay at home
while he tours.
Despite the downsides, it seems 32 years of hard work and
musicianship have paid off with the success of his 2002 album
“Sentir,” which garnered nominations for both a Latin
Grammy and a Best Latin Jazz Album Grammy.
More recently, Sosa received a nomination for Latin Jazz Album
of the Year from the 2005 Jazz Journalists Association Awards for
his album “Mulatos,” on which he fuses Afro-Cuban
rhythms, the harmonic structures, and improvisation of jazz, and
Middle Eastern scales.
Guest stars include Cuban jazz clarinetist Paquito
D’Rivera, along with a tabla player and a player of the oud,
an Arabic lute.
Sosa blends the music of various cultures into the same piece.
On the composition “Reposo,” for instance, one can hear
the influence of modern classical composer Erik Satie in
Sosa’s piano with Middle Eastern-sounding phrases and the
fullness that space can provide in music.
The greatest musical influence on Sosa, however, seems to be
Thelonious Monk, who also shared Satie’s musical preference
for concision, dissonance and eccentricity. Sosa’s son
Lonious is named after the revolutionary but enigmatic jazz artist,
who Sosa calls “my guru.”
Beyond any individual musician or genre, Sosa is fueled by
spirituality. Sosa is a practitioner of Santeria, a religion
created by West African slaves in the Caribbean that heavily
emphasizes the spiritual qualities of music.
Sosa has incorporated the ritual trance music of Yoruba, a West
African people whose religion is an ancestor of Santeria, into some
of his compositions.
Although Sosa has reached a new height in his career in the last
several years, he doesn’t seem to be too concerned with the
idea of success. He likes to focus simply on the spiritual and the
present ““ which for now is his latest tour.
“Try to be alive ““ this is the goal that we need to
fight for,” Sosa said. “Without that, there’s
nothing we can do with the material. The only goal we can have is
be alive and try to express what the spirits ask.”