Pianist Omar Sosa will be performing at the Dakota April 27-28. -Photo courtesy of www.melodia.com
Check out this link: watch?v=ZJsu3pCVkVc
I have always been an achiever. I’m the first person in my family to graduate from college. Today, even though Derek Jeter struck out and the Twins won the game 5-4, Jeter reminds me of what it means to be an achiever.
I’m also reminded of the time Jeter and I met at the Metrodome several years ago. I asked him to sign his book, The Life You Imagine: Life Lessons for Achieving Your Dreams (with Jack Curry, Crown, 2000) for me. He kindly signed the book “To Robin” as he smiled, and we listened to one of his handlers wonder aloud how I got there. Inside the book, I saved an article that ran around the same time that he signed the book. The headline read: “Results Are No Mistake.” This leads me to lessons learned from jazz artists, jazz achievers, and even that guy I was seeing who didn’t treat me very good, but taught me the lesson that love is about action.
I believe achievers are about actions, especially jazz artists that truly do what they love. Lately, I’ve been spending time listening to some jazz artists that are achieving great things. In the book, Jeter writes, “You don’t have to like everyone; but you don’t have to loathe everyone; but you should be choosy about who you spend your time with. I’ve known what I wanted to achieve in life for a long time, and having friends with similar visions has been significant for me because we can push each other to greater heights.”
Two piano men: Robert Glasper & Omar Sosa Pianist Robert Glasper and I had the chance to talk while he was in town with his trio at the Dakota. We rapped about everything from the two-and-a-half-hour set that he played (which drummer Kevin Washington said was “the best concert of the year”) to our beloved pianist Mulgrew Miller, and the new recording that he plans to get started on in May, which will feature his band The Experiment, along with special guests Stokley Williams, Erykah Badu and Mos Def, among others. Pianist Omar Sosa was another topic of our conversation. We talked about his new solo CD, Calma (Otá Records), that was just released this month. He hadn’t heard the disc yet, but I told him that I thought he was going to dig it.
I believe those music lovers that choose to attend Sosa’s gig at the Dakota on April 27-28 will enjoy it as well. The new recording is dedicated to his wife, Montse, and his mother, Maria. Calma is Sosa’s fifth solo piano recording. Listening to the 13 solo piano improvisations brings about a feeling of calm. The music fuses stylistic elements of jazz, classical new music, ambient and electronica. According to the album’s press release, it features a unique combination of acoustic grand piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, and a number of electronic effects and sampled sounds.
All of the instruments were recorded live in the studio with Sosa interacting spontaneously with the sonic elements. Sosa says, “Each song is an inspiration for the next, and improvisation is the basis of the musical expression. I wanted to play from beginning to end without thinking — just feeling where each note would take me, following the voice of my soul. It’s possible that silence, yearning, hope, optimism, and sadness all travel hand-in-hand in many of the songs.” Sosa’s band at the Dakota will include multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum, drummer Marque Gilmore, and electric bassist Childo Tomas.
Appreciating Diego Urcola Appreciation (CAM Jazz) is the name of trumpeter/composer Diego Urcola’s new recording with his quartet featuring Luis Perdomo, Hans Glawischnig, and Eric McPherson. It is his fourth album as a leader. He composed and arranged the tracks that pay respect not by imitation but through compositions inspired and dedicated to friends and heroes such as Freddie Hubbard, Hermeto Pascoal, Paquito D’Rivera and Guillermo Klein. The three-time Grammy-nominee, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina is a compelling performer, composer and arranger. On Appreciation he plays trumpet, flugelhorn, valve trombone, and adds some vocals, too. Among my favorite tracks is “The Natural,” inspired by some of the classic Freddie Hubbard CTI recordings from the 1970s.
Classic jazz concert CD Speaking of Hubbard, if you haven’t already, check out CTI’s 40th Anniversary two-CD set, California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium that features (previously unreleased) Freddie Hubbard on John Coltrane’s “Impressions” at the 1971 jazz concert. The re-recording engineer is Rudy Van Gelder, so you know the music sounds fabulous. “Senhor Wayne,” inspired by some of Shorter’s classic Blue Note recordings from the ’60s, (in a Brazilian samba rhythm, carioca style) is another standout track.
As I’ve just completed my ballot for DownBeat’s 59th Annual International Critics Poll, I am reminded of Glasper, Sosa, Urcola, as well as last year’s Sony Masterworks release L-O-V-E by Cuban superstar Issac Delgado. He collaborates with Freddie Cole to recreate the sounds of Nat King Cole in Spanish. The 12 recreated songs originally sung by the late, great Nat King Cole are indeed sultry and sexy. Nat King Cole’s relationship with the Spanish language is interesting and relatively unknown. Between 1958 and 1962, Nat King Cole released three albums in Spanish. The music was recorded in Cuba, Brazil and Mexico.
His Spanish albums created a new awareness for Latin American music globally. The list of album guests include drummer Dafnis Prieto, percussionist Pedro Martinez, guitarist Romero Lubambo, trombonist Conrad Herwig, and trumpeter Brian Lynch, among others. Freddy Cole’s one-of-a-kind voice on “Quizás, quizás, quizás/Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” is strong and inviting. Of the recordings, Freddy Cole says, “A good song can become the shortest way between two hearts, especially when the best singers and performers hold our hands to take us there. Issac Delgado belongs to this generation of stars.
He successfully and newly versioned, for a new generation of listeners, the essence and the spirit of the classic albums my brother recorded from the late fifties. It’s been a great honor and a true pleasure to be part of this recording. This is the kind of music that always fills our hearts.” All of the recordings above, including the forthcoming Glasper recording, help round out my idea of musical enjoyment. These jazz achievers just keep getting better as they reach greater heights.
Robin James welcomes reader responses to jamesonjazz@spokesman-recorder.com.
Support Black local news
Help amplify Black voices by donating to the MSR. Your contribution enables critical coverage of issues affecting the community and empowers authentic storytelling.