Search - Omar Sosa :: Ayaguna

Since the late '90s, Cuban-born pianist-composer Omar Sosa has created a body of work that's unified the far-flung musical forms of the African diaspora into an anthemic and ancestral aesthetic statement. Ayaguna, which is named for a god in the Santeria religion, was recorded live in Yokohama, Japan, in 2002. Sosa, who usually works in combos, has stripped down to a dynamic duo with the inventive Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles. Augmented by ambient effects, which create ethereal, fugue-like echoes that extend Sosa's drum-like piano lines, the pianist and the percussionist conjure up an incredible mélange of sacred and secular Afro-New World rhythms and sounds. Centered in an impressive array of instruments, which range from congas, bongos, and guiros to the Venezuelan bamboo sticks called quitiplas and cylindrical Culo'e Puya drums, Ovalles weaves a dizzying number of rhythms into surprisingly melodic statements. Sosa, in turn, converts the keyboard into 88 congas. Together, they blend and blur the line between folklore and fine art, especially on the turbo-charged "Toridanzon" and "Africa Madre Viva," the jazz-inflected "Trip in the White Scarf," and the moving and meditative "My Three Notes." The last track, an enhanced multimedia treatment of Sosa's ballad "Iwayo" produced by the London-based VJ team Yeast, adds another dimension to Sosa's sensual art. Eugene Holley, Jr.