JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
Rating: 
For someone who has already heard Omar Sosa, the most impressive aspects of Bembon (released on Sosa’s own Ota Records label) are his continued success in finding singers who can actually sing (rare in jazz circles) and his wonderful arrangements, which have expanded to include strings.
As usual for this phase of his career (Bembon came out in 2000), Bembon is an intertwined mixture of various strands of music from the African diaspora, including sons and salsas from Cuba and Ecuador, tribal percussion and chants from Africa, and rap and post bop piano from the United States.
It’s quite an extraordinary mix, but not quite as in-your-face as another date from the same period, Prietos. That’s fine. Bembon is more than enough to make a Wynton Marsalis-loving jazz purist swallow and choke on his own tongue.
In other words, it’s a fantastic recording.
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Related posts:
- Afreecanos - Omar Sosa
- Free Roots - Omar Sosa
- Mulatos - Omar Sosa
- Prietos - Omar Sosa
- Jazz is Dead - Not!
