Omar Sosa JOG Trio at Helsinki Hudson

7-time GRAMMY-nominated composer and pianist Omar Sosa has forged a distinctive musical path, fusing an array of jazz, world music, hip-hop, and electronic elements with his AfroCuban roots. Omar Sosa returns to Helsinki Hudson with his JOG Trio in support of his current CD, JOG, featuring award-winning German trumpet player Joo Kraus, and renowned percussionist Manolo Badrena. The Trio, exemplifying Omar’s philosophy of jazz as freedom, is improvisation-based, each player bringing his musical roots to the collective experience. Omar and Joo both use various electronic effects and samples, and Joo contributes occasional spoken word vocals. The Trio’s repertoire includes a number of Omar’s signature compositions – “My Three Notes”, “Light In The Sky”, and “Muevete en D” – as well as material from its new CD, “JOG”, which received a 4.5-star review in Downbeat magazine....

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7-time GRAMMY-nominated composer and pianist Omar Sosa has forged a distinctive musical path, fusing an array of jazz, world music, hip-hop, and electronic elements with his AfroCuban roots. Omar Sosa returns to Helsinki Hudson with his JOG Trio in support of his current CD, JOG, featuring award-winning German trumpet player Joo Kraus, and renowned percussionist Manolo Badrena. The Trio, exemplifying Omar’s philosophy of jazz as freedom, is improvisation-based, each player bringing his musical roots to the collective experience. Omar and Joo both use various electronic effects and samples, and Joo contributes occasional spoken word vocals. The Trio’s repertoire includes a number of Omar’s signature compositions – “My Three Notes”, “Light In The Sky”, and “Muevete en D” – as well as material from its new CD, “JOG”, which received a 4.5-star review in Downbeat magazine.

Joo Kraus was part of Omar's "Afri-Lectric Experience", the sextet that recorded Omar's Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" tribute CD in 2012 entitled "EGGUN", and which received a GRAMMY nomination in the Best Latin Jazz category. Joo received a 2012 ECHO award in Germany for Best Trumpet Player. In 1999, Mr. Kraus received international acclaim with a Duo project with German bassist Hellmut Hattler called Tab Two, and their chart topping CD release, "Two Thumbs Up". And in 2006, Joo received a GRAMMY nomination for his CD project with the SWR Bigband entitled "Public Jazz Lounge".

The track record of Puerto Rican percussionist Manolo Badrena goes back to jazz drummer and bandleader Art Blakey’s experiments combining percussionists from varying ethnic backgrounds. In the ‘70’s, Badrena not only worked for several years with Weather Report, at that point one of the top modern jazz attractions, but also toured with the Rolling Stones, Steve Khan and Spyro Gyra. During the ‘80’s, Manolo collaborated with Bill Evans (the saxophonist), and did a stint with eccentric pianist and composer Carla Bley. Active throughout the 2000s, he performed and recorded with the Zawinul Syndicate and Trio Mundo, and appeared on albums by Pete Levin, John Mayer, and longtime associate Ahmad Jamal.

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