.Omar Sosa at Freight & Salvage


As a pianist, composer, and promiscuous collaborator, Cuban-born pianist Omar Sosa never stays put for long. Bay Area jazz fans witnessed his restless creative proclivities firsthand in the late 1990s when he lived in Oakland and steadily expanded his ensemble to encompass scared SanterĂ­a chants, Afro-Ecuadoran rhythms, Moroccan modes, hip-hop cadences, and elliptical post-bop harmonies. Since settling in Spain some 17 years ago, he’s continued to cast a wide net, recording with a disparate international cast, including Brazilian cello maestro Jaques Morelenbaum, Sardinian trumpeter Paolo Fresu, Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, and Senegalese singer and kora master Seckou Keita (his co-leader on the gorgeous 2017 album Transparent Water). For his Freight & Salvage debut, Sosa will introduce the latest incarnation of his longest running ensemble, the Quarteto AfroCubano. Alternating between rhapsodic flights and fiercely percussive passages, Sosa plays his own Afro-Cuban jazz amalgam with longtime Quarteto members Mozambican bassist Childo Tomas and Cuban saxophonist/flutist Leandro Saint-Hill and recent addition Raul Pineda, a powerhouse drummer who spent several years touring and recording with Chucho ValdĂ©s.


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Sunday, Oct. 15, 7 p.m., $40, $44, Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison St., Berkeley, TheFreight.org


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