OMAR SOSA

Omar Sosa was born April 10, 1965, in Camagüey, Cuba. he is a composer, bandleader, and virtuoso jazz pianist.

He began studying marimba at age eight, then switched to piano at the Escuela Nacional de Musica in Havana, where he began to study jazz. Sosa moved to Quito, Ecuador in 1993, then San Francisco, California in 1995. In San Francisco he became deeply involved in the local Latin Jazz scene and began a long collaboration with percussionist John Santos.

The next year Omar made his U.S. recording debut on Otá Records with Omar Omar, followed in 1997 with the first in a trilogy of groundbreaking world-jazz recordings: Free Roots, Spirit of the Roots (1998) and Bembon (2000).
In 1998 Omar began his collaboration with noted Bay Area percussionist and educator John Santos. The duo released a live recording, Nfumbe, in conjunction with their appearance at the San Francisco Jazz Festival that year. The following year, revealing more of the contemplative side of his musical sensibilities, Omar released his second solo piano recording, Inside, a Top-20-selling CD in France for distributor Night & Day. Capping an extraordinarily productive period, Omar also travelled to Ecuador in 1999 to record his critically acclaimed large-ensemble CD Bembon. In approximately 1999, Sosa moved to Barcelona, Spain.

With Prietos (2001) and Sentir (2002), Omar stretches his genre-expanding fusion still further with the use of traditional vocals and instruments from the Gnawa culture of North Africa. We find tongues in Arabic, English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Yoruba, as well as instruments like the guembri, oud, djembi, balafon, and marimba. These recordings are world music in its finest sense: strong, uncompromising sounds, yet always welcoming and honest. Throughout we hear Omar's genius as an arranger and his extraordinary inspiration at the piano.