by Soren Sorensen
Cuban born jazz pianist Omar Sosa is a border crosser. His funky Afro-Cuban jazz is characterized by a seemingly effortless blend of backbeat, swing, blues, bebop and hip-hop. From the meditative solo piano improvisations of Calma to the breakneck tempo and time signature changes of Afreecanos, Sosa has been releasing music at a dizzying pace for the last decade and a half.
Alma, Mr. Sosa’s collaboration with Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu, will be released in early 2012. Thanks to Scott Price, Sosa’s manager and president of Otá Records, Tribe was fortunate enough to attend a concert in Philadelphia (see picture in table of contents) featuring the Omar Sosa Afreecanos Quartet and the Jerry González Fort Apache Band, sampled tracks from Alma and spoke to Sosa at length, via Skype from his home in Spain, about his life in music.
t: Before Alma, had you worked with Paolo Fresu a lot?
OS: Oh yeah. Before we decided to do this duo recording, we had already done a tour in Italy and we played in France. I really enjoy playing with Paolo. He’s a free spirit and we have good chemistry when we play and this is something I’m looking for all the time—not to impress anybody, just to enjoy the music ourselves. You know, jazz and even classical music have become like a strange competition. In my humble opinion all this music should be based on unity and love between the people.
t: How did you decide on Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies” for Alma?
OS: This was Paolo’s idea. I remember when I went to his house to talk a little bit about the record, the first thing we talked about was this piece. Yeah, he said, “Man, I love this Paul Simon song. Can we do a version?” To be honest, I had never heard that song. And he said, “Man, this is a really famous song!” And I said, “Don’t forget I’m from Cuba.”
t: So you never heard Graceland when it came out?
OS: Well actually I listened to a little bit but when I left Cuba I tried to focus on the foundation of the music I was playing. The music I was trying to learn was jazz so I focused on Thelonious Monk, Randy Weston, Andrew Hill and Bill Evans. And that’s a lot of information for a guy who’s starting at 18 years old. In Cuba, we didn’t have the opportunity to listen to the masters like Monk or Miles Davis. For me, back in the day, it took a lot of time to find music by these artists. And when this Paul Simon record came out, I wasn’t paying attention to be honest. Now I try to find traditional music from all over the world. Most of the time, I don’t listen to jazz anymore. I listen to music from every part of Africa, from Mongolia and from Iran. This music has opened a new window in my life. Actually, back to your original question, when Paolo presented “Under African Skies” to me I said, “Well, it’s cool, but I don’t want to listen to the original.” Even today, I don’t know what it sounds like.
t:When I heard your version, I figured you must’ve been a fan of the Graceland record and the way Paul Simon was able to bring together his poppy songwriting with the South African vocal group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
OS: You know what? I listen to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I listened to the roots, but not the rock. Now you’ve brought me to the point where I’m going to buy the record. (laughter)
t:Looking at the notes I made for our interview, it was not my intention to talk about Paul Simon. I don’t know why we’re talking about Graceland at all, to tell you the truth.
OS: Aw, don’t worry, man! Journalists are sometimes like musicians. You have one idea and, you know, somebody says something and the entire conversation goes in that direction. When you’re finished—a couple of times this has happened to me—the journalist might say, “But I still have like twenty questions for you and we’ve been talking for an hour and a half already!”
t:When friends of mine, especially on Facebook or Twitter, offer their opinions about music they’re listening to, it often takes the form of the situation of the music’s mood within times of day and seasons. Sometimes this gives me the feeling that, besides the obvious ways the music business is changing, music itself is becoming a craft and no longer an art. When I say “craft,” I mean a creative pursuit that has a specific use for human beings, distinctly at odds with art for art’s sake, to be enjoyed only for its beauty. Do you think about that in terms of your own work?
OS: Man, that was so beautiful what you just said. I don’t know what I’m going to say now. That’s really deep what you just said. Actually, yes. Every single note that comes through my fingers or through my soul, or whatever you want to call it, is based on what I live. It’s based on my state of mind. It’s based on the environment around me. For example, Calma—I don’t know if you have this record.
t: Yeah, I’ve been listening to it all week.
OS: This is what I live now. And if you listen to my next record Alma, the record with Paolo, it’s pretty much in the same vibe. Even if we have songs like “Under African Skies,” the foundation of the music is what we live and we’re going to express what we feel inside of us. Sometimes we don’t even have a really clear idea of what we’re going to express until the music comes out. If you’re honest with yourself, you need to let your spirit pass the message. The only thing you need to do is translate the message. Of course, if you want to do some kind of established form of music, like pop or something, most of the time you have to write music based on if the people are going to accept it or not. This is not my case. I can’t. I’m not able to do this. I wish! (laughter) But no, I can’t. It’s hard for me to sit at the piano and try to translate something that’s not inside of me. I’m lying to myself if I do this. A couple of times, I said to some friends, “Let’s try to do a pop song,” and after a couple of hours I say, “Hey man, forget it.” I don’t know the rules. I don’t know how it works. To be honest, I don’t think anybody knows what song is going to be a hit. Of course, with the media and the music industry, you can make anything come out like the biggest hit in the world. Eighty percent of the music on the radio—nah, eighty percent is too much. Sixty-five percent—I’m going to be polite—is crappy music, man.
t:I don’t disagree.
OS: It’s simple—people don’t want to think! People want to go out after work and listen to reggaeton. People want to forget their problems. But there’s another kind of world when artists try to express how they feel. Most of the time, only a few artists come out with this kind of concept.
t:As much as I agree with you, I can’t help but feel like even Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk at some point were ridiculed for their derivations from the cultural norms of the day. To older people in the 1950s and 60s, familiar only with European classical music or the folk traditions of their ancestors, Miles and Monk may have sounded brainless and silly. Do you feel like intellectual content in music has been steadily declining since Miles and Monk were around?
OS: No, I don’t think so. I have to say that the new world we live in with computers and the internet is crazy and beautiful and complex all at the same time. For example, we’re talking on Skype. I don’t even have a phone here. Everybody has access to everything today. You can even go on the internet and find all of Miles Davis’ solos on Kind of Blue, note by note. How you’re going to play it is another story. But I don’t think we’ve lost intellectualism. We still have intellectualism. I don’t want to say more than ever but we have more access. The problem is that everyone now is struggling just to survive, to put food on the table. Of course you need to find a way to survive. Sometimes people put intellectualism in the shelf because it won’t pay the bills. The problem is that people don’t want to study or find knowledge inside of themselves because we have everything in the computer. A lot of young people don’t know how to write.
t:People don’t have to make the effort.
OS: Yeah! Everything is online. I’m 46 years old. When I started in school, I had to do everything by hand, study, read books and try to find information. When we started talking about Paul Simon, I told you I spent a lot of time listening to jazz to try to learn. But I spent more time just trying to find the music because I come from a place where the music of all my heroes was prohibited. It was the music for capitalism, for Americans. Now you can find everything on the computer. Everything. Sometimes we have a situation here with my kids in school with some phrase or something and we go to the internet and there are millions of explanations. It’s oversaturated. And the same thing happens with art and music.
t:Too many choices.
OS: Yeah, too many choices. And when you have too many choices, most of the time people will choose the wrong one.
t:The simplest one?
OS: I wish people would choose the simple one because simple things are the foundation of everything.
t:The clave.
OS: Yeah, the clave. You got it, brother. When people have too much choice, they choose whatever they have in their faces in the moment they’re about to choose.
t:Alma seems to have a very early morning feel. And the titles of the tracks on your last record, Calma seem to superimpose the times of day over changing seasons—“Esperanza,” the Spanish word for hope is spring and obviously “Autumn Flowers.” It gives the listener a sense of equity between one day, one year, and one lifetime. How do you try to capture the energy of a time of day or a season or a stage of human existence in your music?
OS: It’s like I told you in the beginning of our conversation. I’m proud—and I need to say thank you to the spirit of life and the ancestors who drive me—to live where I live. You know, the only thing I do is translate what I have in front of my eyes every single day. In the beginning, my idea was only to record Calma for myself. I wasn’t planning on releasing this record. I was trying to translate, without thinking, what I live. I live that music, man. I’m kind of nervous because tomorrow I need to go on tour in the United States. If you get the opportunity to see the sun set in front of your face every single day, it’s something. When I went to the studio in Brooklyn, I took a couple of hours and I said to myself, “I’m going to play just what I feel based on the image I have in my soul.” I gave the CD to my wife and we put it on in the car and one day she asked, “Why don’t you put this record out?” And I said, “You know what? Because this record is for us. This is for us when we drive.” It puts music to every moment of the day, in one way or another. And after that, Scott [Price] and I decided to put it out. I’m happy because a lot of people feel what I tried to express when I went into the studio. And this is something beautiful. It’s nothing for the ego. It’s just for the pleasure of being in tune with Mother Nature.
t:Is Calma doing well?
OS: So far, so good. I’m happy because I never used to listen to my albums after they were finished. When I record and the CD has come out, I never listen to it again.
t:Why don’t you listen to your own work?
OS: I try to move ahead. It’s easy to have nostalgia, especially for me. I’m an immigrant. Every time I look back to my roots, now I see a lot of things that don’t match the way I grew up. With my music, every time I go back and listen, most of the time I tend to be really critical of my work. So I decided when I do a project and it’s finished, it’s done. You need other people to listen to your music. They can like it or not. But don’t take it too seriously because if you do, you’ll never finish your first record. I have a friend, an excellent saxophone player—he’s been working on his record for the last fifteen years. He has a big studio, you know? When you have a big studio in your home, it’s like a drug, man.
t:Yeah, you can’t stop.
OS: You can’t stop. I don’t have a studio in my home. I decided not to have a studio here. Of course, I have Logic. But I like Systems Two [recording studio] in New York. You know, it’s kind of old school. You got drums with the bass with the guitar with the horns and everybody’s together. Now with the computer, you play one note, and you can make a beautiful piece with only one note. But I’m kind of old school even if I like technology. I use a lot of effects and samplers but mostly, I tend to go to the old school. You know, I chose the producer [Steve Argüelles] for two of my records. He produced Mulatos and Afreecanos and it was interesting for me because he has a different approach. When he produces a record, it’s more like a movie with layers. I love layers. I think about them a lot in my music. But I tend to present this idea in only one moment, when we are playing, even if I add a little touch with one or two overdubs. And it was interesting for me when we did these projects because it was completely different. We recorded the basic tracks without a piano! I recorded the piano later.
t:And that wasn’t something you were used to?
OS: No, not at all and it was interesting for me because I needed to compose the music with my part. I played a Fender Rhodes thinking about playing the piano later. My next record, after Alma, is going to be Afri-Lectric. We recorded it in New York in April [2011] and we recorded it all together. Now we’ve started mixing—well, by internet. It’s amazing. It’s different than what Steve did with Afreecanos because sometimes I want to take out something and the guy mixing it says, “Omar, it’s impossible because you all played together.” There’s a lot of bleed but I like it so then I said, “Let’s use the opportunity because we played together to create a sound with a new concept but with the old attitude.” And we’re in this process now and we’ll see what happens. Technology helps in one way but hurts in another. We need to let the spirit talk in the moment. Sometimes with the new technology, I feel like the spirits are afraid to talk. Sometimes technology cuts their voices.
t:Your spirituality seems to really influence your music.
OS: There’s another dimension. In our day-to-day lives, we don’t want to give the right credit to this. So there’s a cosmic energy that gives us the opportunity to feel each other closer, to enjoy ourselves with one simple note. Your energy, what happens around you in terms of connection with the supreme force or whatever you want to call it, might not match another person’s energy. It doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. The point is that we need to figure out a way to listen to this voice and be in tune with this voice. When you fight with this voice, it’s easy to be lost. This is my humble opinion.
t:Let’s go back to your forthcoming album Alma and your last album, Calma. Other than the fact that the titles rhyme, are they related in some way?
OS: Yes. I think that Alma is the next step of Calma. When I went to Paolo’s house, the first thing I told him—before he told me about Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies”—I told him, “Man, let’s do a peaceful record. There’s no reason to do a crazy record.” And you know I love playing with Paulo because he’s a peaceful man. I don’t know if you know his music.
t: I wasn’t familiar with Paolo Fresu before this week actually.
OS: He’s a king in Italy. He’s like a pop star. He plays solo trumpet for four or five thousand people. Solo trumpet! I really love to play with him because his soul is so clean and so fresh. We did the record in one session of two hours, brother. We’re not trying to impress anybody. We don’t want to say, “Oh, look at this!” This is our Alma. Alma means soul. You know, with Jaques Morelenbaum on cello and Paolo and myself, we created this environment based on freedom. This is what’s so beautiful to do in the studio. We didn’t have any conflict, just love and light.
t: What does love mean in your music?
OS: To be in tune with Mother Nature. This is what love means.
t: Why did you tell Paolo Fresu that you wanted to make a peaceful record?
OS: I think it’s just how I feel now. But to go deeper, I need to say, every time I leave my village—this is a little village—I see dark faces, man. I see beautiful faces with no hope. And this is young people. And this is a problem, brother. This is a problem. We need to have hope. This is one of the only things that will move the world ahead. In the big cities—New York, Madrid, Amsterdam, Paris—you see rough people because the political situation is a disaster. It’s a disaster. A lot of people don’t believe anymore in politicians. People think politicians are the new mafia. Actually I think the same thing. But at least I have the opportunity to express myself how I want through music. A lot of people don’t have this opportunity. Sometimes they struggle with themselves and this is why you see violence. A lot of young people are deeply into drugs. A lot of talented people are deeply into heavy drugs just because they’re not in tune with Mother Nature, man. Sorry for repeating this over and over but this is what I see every day here.
You know, I never swam. Even though I’m from Cuba, an island, I never swam in the sea. Actually the beach in Cuba is warm and beautiful and amazing. I never swam! Can you imagine, man? Now I swim almost every day. Now I have to stop because it’s too cold. But I swim with my wife every day. Every time we get out of the water I tell my wife, “You know it’s something. It’s like energy has come to my body.” And she says, “Omar, I feel the same.” I feel bad because now it’s too cold and I won’t be able to swim. The point is “in tune with Mother Nature” is saying thank you to the sun. Say thank you to the stars. Say thank you to a tree.
But I’m a single, simple human being, a molecule in this universe. Or a little atom in this universe! The only thing I can do is translate what I feel the best I can. That’s what I do.
t: Do you still play marimba?
OS: Yeah, yeah! I try on every record to do a little bit. Unfortunately on my last three—Calma, Alma and the next one that’s going to come out at the end of 2012, Afri-Lectric—I don’t play marimba. But this is an instrument I really love.
t: Tell me about switching from marimba to piano when you were younger.
OS: It was by accident, man. You know, I switched to the piano because I discovered in Cuba they only had four or five [marimbas] at that time and I didn’t have access to any of them. So every time I walked around the school I’d see out-of-tune pianos. I remember back in the day, every day I spent three or four hours with a friend of mine. Now he’s a really good piano player and has an amazing salsa band in Cuba. His name is Lazaro Valdes and the band is called Bamboleo. I remember he was trying to play piano and so was I. He played percussion too so we switched off. He played vibraphone and I played piano. Then I’d play vibraphone and he’d play piano. And we did this jam session for almost a year, every day at lunchtime because that was the only time the vibraphone was free. After this I thought I would like to figure out a way to play piano. I play piano like a percussion player. I don’t have any classical training. But something I know that comes through me is that I’m honest with every single note I play and this is something I’m proud of.
t: But obviously the classical influence creeps into your music.
OS: It’s like I said before about Calma. I went to the studio to reproduce what I feel inside of my soul. That’s all. It’s another dimension when you express something and you listen later and say, “This was me?” This happens to me often. I’m happy with this because, you know, sometimes some people call me and ask me to reproduce the same thing. I simply need to say, “No.” To reproduce this I’d need to go back and transcribe every single note I played and this is going to take me a lot of time. I got a request from a kind of famous French movie director. He loved one of my solo records called Inside. He enjoyed four or five pieces on the record and he said, “OK, I want these pieces in my movie but I want you arrange these pieces for the London Symphony.” The budget was like almost nothing. I would’ve liked to do it but I know what it’s like to work with cinema directors, man. They know what they want but they don’t know how to explain it.
t: Improvisation is obviously an important part of your music but talk a little bit more about percussion. Percussion must be vital to the way you think about the piano.
OS: The foundation of music is percussion. I love the harmonic world. If you look at nature, you see perfect harmony in front of your face and your ears. You’re not able to change the weather today. You’re not able to change the waves in the sea. But always in the perfect harmony that Mother Nature gives to you, you have rhythm and you can change this rhythm.
t: Are you pretty conscious of your influences on the piano?
OS: Thelonious Monk is one of my main influences but not only the way he played. It’s more his philosophy. Other influences are Frederick Chopin, Erik Satie, Andrew Hill, Miles Davis and Bill Evans. In my humble opinion, Bill Evans put a stamp on every single contemporary jazz piano player on this planet, on every one. Sooner or later, somebody needs to come out with a book of his chord positions. This is what Miles called “heaven.” Miles wanted a person who could make the model in a new, different way, with a little classical touch, but inside our [jazz] world. And it was Bill Evans, man. He was the man.
t: I definitely hear Bill Evans in your music but also George Gershwin and Aaron Copeland. For some reason, Calma reminded me of The Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett.
OS: Oh yes. I need to say, I tend not to name living artists when I talk about my influences, Herbie [Hancock], Chick [Corea] or Keith [Jarrett]. This is the triangle. If I need to name somebody, I prefer to go more for Randy Weston, Ahmad Jamal, Abdullah Ibrahim. You know we all listened to Herbie, Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea in school. But I didn’t listen enough to the masters. This is how we started our conversation. I took a lot of time to listen to Randy [Weston], Bill Evans, Art Tatum, Bud Powell, all the teachers, even if I can’t play one note in the way they do. But I always say you need to learn and respect the elders to see something clearly in front of your eyes.
t: That fits in with your connection to your ancestors.
OS: Yeah. You know, I need to respect the elders because they’re going to present the road in front of my eyes and they’re going to tell me, “Walk.” If I talk about Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock, I’m talking about people who created their own roads based on other people’s roads. It doesn’t mean I don’t love them. I just prefer to name the elders.
t: Now that you have children, how has your practicing, writing and recording changed?
OS: Oh man, it’s another life. I try to go with the flow. I try to raise my family in a peaceful environment and a lovely environment. We enjoy pretty much the same things or at least I’m going to present something we can enjoy together. This is something that happened with music. My kids don’t play any instruments yet but they are really talented in art.
t: You told me they paint.
OS: Yeah, my daughter loves to paint. My son loves Manga. He’s crazy with the Manga! One thing I learned, now with a family, when I’m inspired everything comes quick and fast. If a song comes to me—even if I need to write two or three pages—I’m done in ten . Why? I don’t know. Let’s say because I’m at peace now. Or because maybe, in the environment I’m in it’s possible to do things like this. I try to not take it too seriously, creating and studying. I try to go with the flow because the kids deserve time. Every time I’m home, I try. Actually, I see my wife coming now to say tell me the kids are going to bed so maybe we need to finish, brother.
t: I really appreciate your time.
OS: Actually, I need to say something. With my kids and my family, I try to not have expectations about what’s going to happen in my career. When you have high expectation and something doesn’t happen the way you want it to and you’re down, you pass this energy to the people around you and your family doesn’t deserve this. They deserve the most beautiful thing you can give to them. This is what I try to do. This is why I need to quit now, brother.
t: You have to go put them to bed.
OS: Yeah, peace and love. Take care.
