Mulatos (Otá Records)

Omar Sosa

Released September 21, 2004

Grammy Nominee for Best Latin Jazz Album 2006

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kR6XMDmk7Jp6b0HYzUNwTjQOHSpBWpSL4

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/album/3atObTaAp4PVEl9gFdWTss?si=vJFY7ykySGWhoQD6ZrPjqA

About:

How to be true to a music tradition and be part of the world at large? To be a modern artist (and consequently a traveler), without dismissing your roots? Omar Sosa searches out new sounds for a music that is simultaneously his own, and part of an Afro-Cuban culture. Mulatos is a fitting description for the kind of approach Omar is adopting – a mix of Cuban music that dances with rhythmic inspirations of Indian tabla, jazz drums, and studio mixing. Listening to the voices of the Arabic lute, the oud, a fore runner of the Cuban tres, and European clarinet melodies reminding him of Paquito D’Rivera and the repertoire of the great Cuban masters, Omar Sosa’s unique way of imagining how this can fit together and making the leap to realize the recording of it, is what makes him stand out as a very modern musician – an inventive and courageous artist.The album Mulatos features the highly individual talents of Dhafer Youssef (oud), Steve Argüelles (drums, electronics), Dieter Ilg (double bass), Philippe Foch (tabla), and Renaud Pion (clarinets). With the exception of Omar Sosa, the relation to Cuban music for these musicians is somewhat removed, though respectful and engaging. Omar’s extraordinary abilities as a composer, pianist, marimba percussionist (new here to many of his followers) and his authoritative leadership threads this together beautifully to create a major development for a Cuban jazz artist.Joining the project as special guest on clarinet for three compositions, someone whose artistry Omar has admired for many years, is Paquito D’Rivera (tracks 1, 2, 6).

Producer Steve Argüelles remarks, “It’s an album that is tightly constructed, like movie editing in the sense that the clarity of musical ideas are presented to maximum effect, be it a simple melody, a curious rhythm, or an electronic touch here and there. It remains rich, too, in the way that a favorite record is what you keep returning to, an important objective of ours. It tells a story about Omar’s relation to jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms and spirituality, the piano, and a freely expressive mind”.

Track Listing:

1. Ternura (Omar Sosa) 7:30

2. Nuevo Manto (Omar Sosa) 6:14

3. La Tra (Omar Sosa) 5:46

4. Reposo (Omar Sosa) 4:23

5. La Llamada (Omar Sosa) 7:27

6. Dos Caminos (Omar Sosa) 5:39

7. Iyawo (Omar Sosa) 6:23

8. L3zero (Omar Sosa) 6:41

9. El Consenso (Omar Sosa) 5:25

Personnel:

Omar Sosa, piano, Fender Rhodes, harmonium, marimba, vibraphone, tubular bells, all percussion, samples, vocal

Dhafer Youssef, oud

Renaud Pion, clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet

Dieter Ilg, acoustic bass

Philippe Foch, tabla, bowl

Steve Arguelles: drums, scratches

Aziz Arradi, guembri, qarqabas, vocal

Paquito D’Rivera, clarinet (1, 2, 6)

Recorded at Palais De Congres, Paris, France, Plush Space, Paris, France, Sound Retreat, NY, Studio Damian, Paris, France, Ventilador STudios, Barcelona, Spain

Produced and mixed by Steve Arguelles

Engineers: Bruce Keen, Steve Arguelles, Daniel Freiberg

Mastering: Jean-Pierre Chalbos

Illustrations: Marina Maass

Graphic Design: Tomas F. Presas

Executive Producer: Scott Price

Review:

“File under Latin Jazz” reads the message to the retailer on the cover of this adventurous, finely wrought and wholly delightful melange of Cuban jazz, Latin dance grooves, French chanson, North African trance music and European folk. And yes, it is Latin jazz, Jim, but not as we generally know it.

Less a conscious, structured world music fusion than some of Sosa’s previous projects, and more a free flowing collaboration between musicians from different cultural backgrounds, Mulatosfalls into none of the usual world jazz pigeonholes and is very much the product of the particular group of musicians—two Cubans, two North Africans and four Europeans—who recorded it. Most of them already have distinguished genre-busting and musical-miscenegation track records. Tunisian oud master Dhafer Youssef has this month been touring the UK with Norwegian nu-jazzers Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Audun Erlien and Rune Arnesen (their performance at the London Jazz Festival was sublime). British drummer Steve Arguelles—who produced Mulatos and recorded it in the main in his adopted hometown, Paris—is an alumni of London’s idiosyncratic and culturally inclusive Loose Tubes, and German bassist Dieter Ilg has made some fine jazz-meets-folk albums (two of them, in the late ’90s, with Arguelles).

Sosa’s humanism, as always, shines through the album and there is a sunny, healing quality running through the set, which is essentially chamber music. Like a European chamber orchestra, the lineup is pared down, the featured instruments are those from the more intimate and mellifluous end of the tonal spectrum, and the performance itself is concerned with subtleties, miniatures and vignettes rather than big events and grand climaxes.

Arguelles’s production is appropriately loose limbed and light of touch, scrupulously avoiding the over busy and allowing every constituent part of the music—be it a melody, a rhythm or a texture—to have space and breathe. Sosa solos frequently, mainly on piano, and Paquito D’Rivera and Renaud Pion keep the clarinets centrestage much of the time, but there are also several magical and unexpected duets and trios between Sosa’s battery of tuned percussion, Youssef’s oud (with its occasional touches of Flamenco guitar and Italian mandolin) and Ilg’s fat, expansive basslines.

Music to lose yourself in, and to revive your spirit with.

Chris May (All About Jazz)