The soundtrack of the multi-award-winning 2022 documentary by filmmaker Soren Sorensen, Omar Sosa’s 88 Well Tuned Drums further supports the director’s premise - that the Cuban pianist approaches the 88 keys of the piano with a percussive flair which, while bold and soulful, is never at the expense of dynamics, sensitivity or indeed, the artist’s palpable humanity. A priest of the syncretic Santeria religion as well as a seven-time Grammy nominee, Barcelona-based Sosa channels his onstage charisma and finger-tip inventiveness into building bridges between ancestral rhythms and free-flowing jazz.

He’s said that jazz as a philosophy represents freedom, helps him find truth in storytelling. This eight-track album cherry-picks music from eight albums including Across the Divide (2009) and Eggün (2013), and features star turns by the likes of Germany’s progressive NDR Big Band (on the rollicking 'Cha Cha Du Nord') and US-born vocalist/ethnomusicologist Tim Ericksen, singing from deep inside the song/prayer that is 'Promised Land' - which Sosa, playing live, often uses as a tribute to Elegua, the Santeria orisha-deity who opens the way. The thudding guembri bass and clattering qarqabas castanets of Morocco are laced throughout 'Trodanzøn', a track piqued by Sosa’s appearances at the Gnawa festival in Essaouira, and further evidence of his drive to find links, pick up narrative threads. A 'Best Of' compilation, then - and a testament to a wildly impressive creative mind.