Omar Sosa, the virtuosic pianist and 7 time Grammy nominee hailing from Cuba, I believe is seriously underrated. I personally loved his performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival a few years back. In 2009, he was commissioned by the Barcelona Jazz Festival to compose and produce a tribute to the legendary Miles Davis album Kind Of Blue on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. This lead to Sosa’s 2013 album Eggun, a completely original take on the aforementioned Kind Of blue heavily influenced by Sosa’s Cuban heritage as well as the African diaspora. Hear select tracks from the album performed live at the Jazz A La Villettte festival filmed last August in Paris. The band features Sosa on keys, vocals and effects, Mozambican bass player Childo Thomas, American drummer Marque Gilmore, Cuban saxophonist Leandro Saint-Hill (also on flute and vocals) and German trumpet player Joo Kraus. Video courtesy of Arte, expires March 6th.
Sébastien Hélary co-founded Nextbop in 2009 with the objective of introducing modern jazz music to a younger generation of fans. Aside from music, his other main obsession is food, particularly ramen and other Japanese delicacies.
