When Omar Sosa walked onstage at the Jazz Bakery on Thursday evening, magisterially dressed in head-to-toe white, he carried with him a candle in one hand and a small carved deity in the other.
Then, seated before his piano, he began tapping out notes in tandem with percussionist John Santos' extraordinary mlange of found and sampled sounds, including cymbals, chimes, a cellphone ring tone and a child's music box playing “Frre Jacques." Once in a while, Sosa reached inside his piano to gently brush the strings with his hands, in a gesture of syncopation solidarity.
Gradually, they were joined by bass player and vocalist Childo Tomas and saxophonist-flutist Peter Apfelbaum, taking their places with the practiced ritualism of priests.
