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OMAR SOSA & SECKOU KEITA SUBA TRIO
Sunday, April 10, 2022 | 8:00 pm
$29.50 – $49.50
PDX JAZZ proudly present
OMAR SOSA & SECKOU KEITA SUBA Trio
feat percussionist GUSTAVO OVALLES THE RESER
Patricia Reser Center for The Arts
feat percussionist GUSTAVO OVALLES THE RESER
Patricia Reser Center for The Arts
$30.00 – $40.00 / ADV Reserved Seating /
All Ages, Bar w/ Valid ID
All Ages, Bar w/ Valid ID
Members Discount show
“Through the music we bring a message of peace, hope and unity. When everything around us falling apart, the one thing we have inside ourselves is a divine connection with our inner voice.” Omar Sosa
SUBA is the second collaboration between 7-time GRAMMY-nominated pianist, composer, bandleader Omar Sosa and Senegalese kora master and vocalist Seckou Keita, featuring folkloric Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles. Their latest recording made NPR Music’s ’20 Best Albums of 2021’ list and received a 4-star review in DownBeat.
Both charismatic and virtuoso performers, Sosa and Keita share a special musical chemistry that inspires audiences to their feet with a unique fusion of jazz and world music. Each concert is an uplifting experience, reflecting the close and compassionate listening of artists engaged in a captivating musical conversation.
The Atlantic Ocean separates Cuba and Senegal, the respective birthplaces of piano virtuoso Omar Sosa and kora master Seckou Keita, a distance diminished by their shared ancestral connection to Africa.
Recorded during lockdown and released in Oct 2021, Sosa and Keita’s second album SUBA is a hymn to hope, to a new dawn of compassion and real change in a post-pandemic world, a visceral reiteration of humanity’s perennial prayer for peace and unity.
“Sosa and Keita deliver a work that variously ebbs, flows and sparkles.” Jazzwise
When the pair met in 2012, Seckou loved Omar for his musical spirituality, whilst Omar saw in Seckou a rare ability to collaborate but not lose his identity. Their debut album Transparent Water (2017) was hailed as ‘beautiful, rhapsodic… spiritual’ Songlines
‘…mesmerising, evocative and sophisticated.’ World Music Central
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.
The UK-based Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita has made a name for himself as one of the foremost innovators operating in African music today. In the two decades since he landed in the UK he has established himself as the their foremost kora player and become an integral mainstay of the nation’s vibrant multicultural roots scene. Working solo, or in collaboration with an eclectic range of musicians, his virtuosity has consistently adorned some of this magazine’s favorite five star albums and won him three Songlines Music Awards in the process.
There has also been a brace of awards at that very British institution, the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, including “Folk Musician of the Year”, an honor of which he is particularly proud, but which he greeted with characteristic modesty.
There has also been a brace of awards at that very British institution, the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, including “Folk Musician of the Year”, an honor of which he is particularly proud, but which he greeted with characteristic modesty.
“I don’t know if I’m a folk musician, a jazz or a world one,” he said at the time. “Forget about categories. My music is just music to be listened to – it’s good music for the soul and no matter your feelings, if you’re sad or happy, it will fit in. It’s a healing process.”
