Eggun (Otá Records)
Omar Sosa
Released February 11, 2013
Grammy Nominee for Best Latin Jazz Album 2014
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=KrSr27peWJk&list=OLAK5uy_l_1E8HMhrlRukHI9wHb1yzfZWw8y0CxUI
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/6iEI7QNioDPGzLfOoctF5T?si=rqsbb-HzTfuYLFFSoaz9ZA
About:
Harmony, peace, respect, freedom. That has been Omar Sosa’s
response to our proposal: to revisit Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis, from his own (quite exceptional) aesthetic assumptions. The year was 2009. The 41st Voll-Damm Barcelona International Jazz Festival had hired drummer Jimmy Cobb – the only surviving member of the group’s original line-up who created that record – and a tribute band committed to revive, in concert, the memory of that iconic jazz piece. But Kind of Blue, rather than a museum piece, is a mysterious record with an intimacy to be disclosed very slowly, generation after generation, beyond the commonplaces of history books.
That’s why we asked two artists who are familiar with our festival to revisit Kind of Blue from another perspective, following the artistic principles evoked by Bill Evans in his notes to the record signed by Davis: be yourself, be spontaneous, give all you have to give, everything you learned from those who came before and those you are sharing the road with. We selected Chano Domínguez, from Andalucía, who contributed Flamenco Sketches (Blue Note, 2012), and Cuban Omar Sosa, who did a powerful research of Miles Davis’ record.
Eggun (ancestors) is not a typical record, just as Sosa is not a typical pianist. The artist, at first reluctant, became obsessed probing into Kind of Blue to find nothing else but the paradoxes of a never-ending search: love and indifference; exile and emigration; being here and now with the lessons of those who illuminated us; restless energy and deliberate contemplation; the uncanny twists and turns of our souls and the shades of our lives; the constant strain between grief and joy, contradictory and supplementary at the same time.
Eggun essentially derives from the melodic cells of Kind of Blue’s solos and has the aim of honoring that record, which, let’s say it once more, is hardly known in spite of having been used and abused. Eggun is like all of Sosa’s works, an invitation to a journey plentiful with luxury, peace and sensuality (thanks, Baudelaire!). We have a welcome with Alejet – whitein Arabic – and El Alba. All the sounds of the African diaspora – where Moroccan bendir meets Dominican merengue and Puerto Rican plena: So All Freddie. The interludes, almost sacred invocations to the genius of Bill Evans. And a passionate desperation in the finale, as in records conceived the old way, like a narrative, followed by the final rest, grace in a religious sense, like an overflowing energy which at the end of the journey becomes pure togetherness.
Kindness, in short.
Joan Anton Cararach (Artistic Director of the Barcelona Voll-Damm International Jazz Festival. In 2009 he commissioned ‘Eggun’ to Omar Sosa to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue’)
Track Listing:
1. Alejet (Omar Sosa) 7:27
2. El Alba (Omar Sosa) 8:49
3. Interludio, Pt. 1 (Omar Sosa) 0:56
4. Alternativo Sketches (Omar Sosa) 9:04
5. Interludio, Pt. 2 (Omar Sosa) 0:36
6. Madre Mia (Omar Sosa) 8:47
7. Interludio, Pt. 3 (Omar Sosa) 0:50
8. So All Freddie (Omar Sosa) 8:23
9. Interludio, Pt. 4 (Omar Sosa) 0:57
10. Rumba Connection (Omar Sosa) 9:19
11. Interludio, Pt. 5 (Omar Sosa) 1:05
12. Angustiado (Omar Sosa) 7:42
13. Angustiado Reprise (Omar Sosa) 2:43
14. Interludio, Pt. 6 (Omar Sosa) 0:33
15. Calling Eggun (Omar Sosa) 6:22
Personnel:
Omar Sosa: piano, Fender Rhodes, electronics; samples
Marque Gilmore: acousti-lectric drums; effects programming, drum loop production
Childo Tomas: electric bass, kalimba, vocals
Joo Kraus: trumpet, flugelhorn, electronic effects
Leandro Saint-Hill: alto saxophone, clarinet, flute
Peter Prfelbaum: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass saxophone, melodica, caxixi
Lionel Loueke: electro-acoustic guitar, vocals
Marvin Sewell: guitars
Pedro Martinez: percussion
John Santos: clave, chereke, waterphone, panderetas, tambora, guiro, quijada
Gustavo Ovalles: percussion
Recorded Systems Two, Brooklyn, NY
Producer: Omar Sosa
Engineer: Joe Marciano, Max Ross
Additional recording by Greg Landau, Steve Argüelles
Mastered by John Greenham
Mixed by John Greenham, Omar Sosa
Cover Photography by Massimo Mantovani
Design: Tomas F. Presas
Review:
A tribute to trumpet legend Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959), without a single song from the record? The answer: an emphatic “Yes!” In 2009, piano wizard Omar Sosa received a commission from the Barcelona Jazz Festival to “compose and produce a tribute performance to Miles Davis’ classic recording, Kind Of Blue, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.” The keyword there is “tribute”; not “facsimile” or “rewrite.” Even if they had asked Sosa for such a thing, they would have been unlikely to get it from such an original player. His Davis-like reputation as an uncompromising artist who does his own thing, regardless of trends, made him the perfect choice for such a project and he didn’t—and doesn’t—disappoint. It took a few years for the music to get recorded and make it to the marketplace, but it’s here now and it’s stunning.
Joan Cararach, the director the Barcelona Jazz Festival, makes note of the fact that this music “derives from the melodic cells of Kind Of Blue’s solos,” and notes that the brief interludes connect to pianist Bill Evans’ work, but that may or may not be so important. Something so obviously grown from “Flamenco Sketches” might be detected in Sosa’s music—or the “So What,” “All Blues,” and “Freddie Freeloader” references of “So All Freddie”—or perhaps they won’t. What’s wonderful about this recording is that it’s open to interpretation by the individual and it captures the spirit, if not the musical essence, of Davis.
While Sosa breaks the record up into fifteen tracks, it plays out best as one long-form work. His skills as a sonic architect shine through here. On his previous recordings, the solo Calma (Ota, 2011) and duo Alma (Ota, 2012), Sosa was the focal point, but on this record, his role is different. He still acts as a pianistic conjurer of spirits, but his big-picture job as puppet master and constructionist is of greater importance in the grand scheme of things.
When working with a pan-global ensemble of eleven, it’s important to consider the road map and Sosa does more than that; he writes it. Some things remain fairly consistent and present, like Childo Tomas’ bubbly bass and Joo Kraus’ cut-to-the-heart, Davis-esque trumpet, but other parts come and go. Percussion is an important and near-constant element at play, as on all of Sosa’s larger works, but with three percussionists and a drummer mixing things up, it never sounds the same from moment to moment or track to track. Leandro Saint-Hill and woodwind antiquarian Peter Apfelbaum both deserve high praise, proving to both be valuable design elements, as they cover everything from flute to bass saxophone between them.
Eggun, like most of Sosa’s records, is more of an experience than an album, so sit back, light some candles, as Sosa himself would likely do, and let the music take you away.
Dan Bilawsky (All About Jazz)
