Time: 69:09
Size: 158.3 MB
Styles: Big band, Piano jazz
Year: 2018
Art: Front
[ 6:07] 1. Cha Cha Du Nord
[ 7:04] 2. Reposo
[ 7:47] 3. L3zero
[ 6:05] 4. My Three Notes
[ 9:34] 5. Glu-Glu
[10:32] 6. Iyade
[12:59] 7. Angustiado
[ 8:58] 8. Sad Meeting
This is the second album the Cuban pianist Omar Sosa has made with the Hamburg radio band – its predecessor was called Ceremony and came out in 2010 – and as before the arranger is the Brazilian Jacques Morelenbaum. I haven’t heard Ceremony but if it’s as good as es:sensual, I must seek it out immediately.
The NDR is a dream of a band for, it seems, any soloist or arranger. It not only brings impeccable musicianship to the studio, but also a sensitivity to a wide range of musical styles. Sosa has shown with his own releases a great versatility, incorporating American roots music on Across The Divide, flamenco flavours on Ilé, and a real Afro-Cuban collaboration with Transparent Water, his duo album with kora player Seckou Keita, so the NDR is a likely to have a ball here.
Sosa’s solos are as propulsive and melodic as one would expect, whether at the grand or going electric, but the real icing on the cake is Morelenbaum’s arrangements. The other bonus is that Sosa has brought with him his own drummer. Much as I’m sure the NDR’s kit man could have done a fine job, there’s nothing quite like the real thing, here in the form of fellow Cuban Ernesto Simpson. Add NDR’s Argentine super-percussionist Marcio Doctor and the music’s base becomes a seething sea of the unexpected over a bed of rhthmically rippling sand. ~Peter Bacon
The NDR is a dream of a band for, it seems, any soloist or arranger. It not only brings impeccable musicianship to the studio, but also a sensitivity to a wide range of musical styles. Sosa has shown with his own releases a great versatility, incorporating American roots music on Across The Divide, flamenco flavours on Ilé, and a real Afro-Cuban collaboration with Transparent Water, his duo album with kora player Seckou Keita, so the NDR is a likely to have a ball here.
Sosa’s solos are as propulsive and melodic as one would expect, whether at the grand or going electric, but the real icing on the cake is Morelenbaum’s arrangements. The other bonus is that Sosa has brought with him his own drummer. Much as I’m sure the NDR’s kit man could have done a fine job, there’s nothing quite like the real thing, here in the form of fellow Cuban Ernesto Simpson. Add NDR’s Argentine super-percussionist Marcio Doctor and the music’s base becomes a seething sea of the unexpected over a bed of rhthmically rippling sand. ~Peter Bacon
Es:sensual mc
Es:sensual zippy