For more than 20 years, dear friend and former colleague from The Miami Herald, photographer Carl Juste has been working on Havana-Haiti, an extraordinary project exploring the connections between Cuban and Haitian history and culture.
He has assembled a terrific group of photographers and writers, each addressing a different issue –from labor and religion, to history and hope.
It will be a privilege to be part of the project and contribute an essay about the cross-pollination between the Cuban and Haitian musical traditions.
One of the artists we are focusing on to tell that part of the story is pianist and composer Omar Sosa, from Camagüey, Cuba. His work explores the culture of the African diaspora and the seemingly endless permutations and combinations of African-rooted musical traditions.
Sosa is currently crowdfunding a sextet project featuring saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart and singers and players from both the Santeria and Vodou traditions.
The video is from his Transparent Water project with Seckou Keita.
(Sosa and Keita will be presenting Transparent Water in Miami in March.)