Omar Sosa + Battista Giordano + Tenores di Oniferi
Isolanos

SARD 0007

8032958621022
S'ard Music
Cuba

 

This work is the result of an extraordinary meeting among gifted artists on the same stage of the European Jazz Expo 2007: Omar Sosa, one of the most acclaimed pianist of the last years whose success lies in the blend and combination of different musical and cultural elements; the Sardinian composer Battista Giordano; the voices of the Tenores from Oniferi and the Sosa’s Cuban trio. The work “Isolanos” is based on the ability of “cantu a tenore” to express the uniqueness of Sardinian musical culture, and proposes the idea of a relation between Cuba and Sardinia. The result is a combination of jazz and world music, among musicians coming from distant places but all equally devoted to their traditions.


This work is the result of an extraordinary meeting among gifted artists on the same stage of the European Jazz Expo 2007: Omar Sosa, one of the most acclaimed pianist of the last years whose success lies in the blend and combination of different musical and cultural elements; the Sardinian composer Battista Giordano, contemporary musician, whose cultural background is close to the “cantu a tenore” (style of polyphonic folk singing typical of some Sardinian areas); the voices of the Tenores from Oniferi (Raimondo Pidia, Francesco, Giovanni e Carmelo Pirisi) and the Sosa’s Cuban trio with Childo Tomas on bass, Leandro Saint–Hill on saxophone and flute and Julio Cesar Barreto on drums and percussion.
“Cantu a tenore” is one of the most emblematic examples of Mediterranean polyphony, for its complexity, richness in timbre and expressive force; its characteristics make it a specific Sardinian phenomenon, with no equals in the whole world, so that in 2006 it was recognized by UNESCO as an element of World Cultural Heritage. The work “Isolanos” is based on the ability of “cantu a tenore” to express the uniqueness of Sardinian musical culture, and proposes the idea of a relation between Cuba and Sardinia, identifying in jazz music the means to reveal unexpected links and amazing musical connections. The wished result is to combine jazz and world music, among musicians coming from distant places but all equally devoted to their traditions, in a work that avoids the simplistic idea of surface differences, but aims to compare those that are two very essences of jazz. On one side the Western idea of music, compelled to be oriented mainly towards esthetic features, set in specific laws of proportion between harmony and composition; on the other side the African soul, strictly related to human practices, an artistic way to describe reality in all its various aspects, emotional response to life, able to express the nature through sounds. This combination is the essence of this work, since it is a contact between Cuba and Sardinia, between Omar Sosa and Battista Giordano and “cantu a tenore”. It reveals a Sardinian music capable to express its autonomous basis so different from Western music and nourished by new fascinating elements of Cuban music, jazz and improvisation.

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