While on tour in East Africa in 2009, pianist/composer Omar Sosa embarked on a musical safari, equipped not with a rifle, but with mobile recording equipment (and a very able sound engineer, Patrick Destandeau), a love of African musical cultures, and a vast imagination. Now, 12 years later, Sosa releases An East African Journey (available March 5), which combines exquisite recordings of traditional musicians with augmentations from Sosa and colleagues—the latest chapter in Sosa’s long-standing fascination with blending the folkloric and the modern, the acoustic and the electronic.
