Jazz and Cuban music have always had a special relationship since the forties when musicians like Mario Bauza, Machito and Dizzy Gillespie co-operated. Many musicians later followed in their footsteps, from Arturo Sandoval and Paquita D'Rivera in the eighties to pianists like Gonzalo Rubalcaba (also at the festival with David Sanchez) in our time. Pianist Omar Sosa too masters the art of mixing extremely beautiful Afro-Cubans rhythms with the harmonic structures and improvising qualities of jazz music. His last album earned him a Latin Grammy Award. On his new CD Ayaguna, which was recorded at a concert in Japan, the pianist co-operates with Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovales. Both closely follow the Santeria, the Cuban manifest of the Yoruba Culture in West-Africa, a given that makes the musical atmosphere a bit dreamy, almost spiritual. Sosa exploits all possibilities of his piano, sometimes even playing the snares and produces complex, exiting rhythms.
