THE SHOWROOM SESSIONS: Streaming LIVE from Piedmont Piano Company
Omar circa 1998
Omar Sosa & Friends:
A Reunion
Omar returns to his home-away-from-home for a very special reunion with two of his earliest Bay Area bandmates, drummer Josh Jones, and multi-reed player Sheldon Brown! Omar will start with solo piano, featuring new material developed at home in Barcelona during the pandemic, and the Trio will explore a few of Omar’s signature compositions, including ‘My Three Notes’ and ‘Cha Cha du Nord’, written during the late 1990s when Omar and Josh and Sheldon were playing San Francisco clubs like the Elbo Room, Up & Down, and Café du Nord. Joining the festivities will be guest vocalist Daria Nile, a local jazz and blues singer inspired by African, Latin, folk, soul, and classical musics. A unique evening – not to be missed!
Watch the LIVE STREAM on youtube.com or facebook
Donation/tips accepted via paypal.me/sosafunke
Cuban composer and pianist Omar Sosa is one of the most versatile jazz artists on the scene today. He fuses a wide range of jazz, world music, and electronic elements with his native Afro-Cuban roots to create a fresh and original urban sound – all with a Latin jazz heart. Omar Sosa's musical trajectory has taken him from Camagüey and Havana to touring in Angola, the Congo, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua in the 1980s; to a sojourn in the African-descent communities of Ecuador in the early 1990s; to an extended presence on the San Francisco Bay Area Latin jazz scene; to his current engagement with artists from France, Cuba, Brazil, and several North, West, and East African nations. His career embodies the expansive outlook of a visionary artist who has taken Monk's uncompromising spirit to heart, while working ceaselessly to craft and project a unique, cosmopolitan voice.
Mr. Sosa received a lifetime achievement award from the Smithsonian Associates in Washington, DC in 2003 for his contribution to the development of Latin jazz in the United States. Over the years, Omar has been nominated seven times for GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY awards, and twice for the BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards. In 2003 he received the Afro-Caribbean Jazz Album of the Year Award from the Jazz Journalists Association in NYC for his recording Sentir; and a nomination from the Jazz Journalists Association for Latin Jazz Album of the Year in 2005 for his recording Mulatos, featuring Paquito D’Rivera.
Mr. Sosa was born in Camagüey, Cuba in 1965. He moved to Havana in 1980 to continue his music studies at the prestigious Escuela Nacional de Música, finishing his formal training at the Instituto Superior de Arte in 1983. Among his influences, Omar cites traditional Afro-Cuban music, European classical composers (including Chopin, Bartok, and Satie), jazz masters Monk, Coltrane, Parker, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Chucho Valdés, and the pioneering Cuban jazz group Irakere. omarsosa.com