Born and raised in Santiago de Cuba, pianist Aruán Ortiz has
consistently followed his vision of ever expanding musical horizons. Beginning
with an exploration of Cuba’s musical heritage, Ortiz combines elements from a
range of genres to form an unmistakable personal style with foundations in the
polyrhythms of Afro-Cuban music. On his latest album, Cub(an)ism (out June 16
from Intakt Records), he brings that unique blend of modernism and tradition to
the solo piano, offering an undiluted excursion into the crossroads of Cuban
rhythms and Cubist abstraction.
Cub(an)ism arrives twenty years after Ortiz’ last solo
album, his very different debut release, Impresión Tropical. Recorded in Spain
when he was still in his early 20s, Impresión Tropical reveals the blend of
influences that would come to mark Ortiz’s mature style in their nascent form,
with Cuban rhythms formalized into contemporary classical structures and
refracted through a modern jazz lens. His approach to that combination would
become exponentially more complex in the coming decades, and Cub(an)ism finds
them in full, expansive flower.
Ortiz’s compositions for solo piano release traditional
sounds and forms from their original contexts, channel them and feed on them as
free information within his genre-boundary-busting musical world, which, like
tradition itself, is by definition constantly in movement, never following a
firm set of rules. On Cub(an)ism, Afro-Haitian Gagá rhythms (see “Louverture
op1. (Château de Joux)”) and the traditional genres of Afro-Cuban Rumba and
Yambú form constantly permuting rhythmic frameworks for improvisation-heavy
jazz modernism, leaving room for recollections of contemporary classical music,
while specific toques of Tumba Francesa such as Yubá, approach the musical
world of John Cage (see “Monochrome”). Ortiz’ intellectually playful keyboard
art makes its way through an expansive musical cosmos in which the mathematical
rigor of architectural structure and emotional freedom are interlocked (see
“Sacred Chronology,” a piece based on the Fibonacci sequence).
Ortiz translates the current global catchphrase “everything
connects” into a meaningful musical language. With a spiritual connection to
his mentor Muhal Richard Abrams, Ortiz does not view music as one-dimensional;
it must be placed in relationship to other art forms, particularly painting.
The title Cub(an)ism represents a fundamental tribute to a key source of
inspiration for Ortiz: the tradition-shattering art movement cubism, which like
his music is essentially orientated on rhythm and dynamics.
Especially relevant in this context is the Cuban painter
Wifredo Lam, whose masterpiece “The Jungle” is the inspiration for the
signature track “Cuban Cubism.” Like Lam’s painting, Ortiz’ Cuban cubism is
based on an original, multi-layered game of perception, and key cubist devices
can be recognized in his painterly music. A major theme is sliced into jigsaw
pieces which are hidden within the overall sense, as in “Passages,” in which
phantom notes are emphasized that are not actually there. In the collage-like
piecing-together of heterogeneous, geometric pieces, Ortiz’ penchant for
architectural sound structures and the juxtaposition of rhythms and patterns
can be heard. There is also a cubist sense of multiple perspectives and
simultaneity in the sense of multiple views of an object, or a musical
structure, heard in tracks such as “Passages” and “Intervals,” both based on a
similar conceptual idea of melodic or rhythmic permutation from a different
perspective each time.
Cub(an)ism is the result of an in-depth conversation with a
range of musical idioms and styles, and various experiences from the phases of
Ortiz’ life, in Cuba, Spain, France and the USA which have formed his eclectic
concept of music. He began his musical career with the violin, switching to the
viola at 10. His devotion for this instrument allowed him to win countless
prizes and play several viola concertos with an orchestra when he was a
teenager. The choice of piano only came at age nineteen, in 1992. Although
Ortiz had been familiar with the instrument for years, in the early 1980s piano
lessons were an obligatory part of a musical education in Cuba. When he
finished his studies in classical music, he left the island for Barcelona where
he transitioned from being an autodidactic jazz aficionado to the pursuit of a
formal jazz degree.
His teachers included Horacio Fumero, who educated him on
the historical evolution of jazz piano playing. Following the period in Spain
when he recorded Impresión Tropical, he moved to Boston in 2002 to study at
Berklee College of Music with teachers including Joanne Brackeen and Danilo
Pérez. There he encountered the free jazz movement, which was to have a lasting
influence. In 2008 Ortiz relocated to Brooklyn, the epicenter of innovative
musical personalities, where he is based today.
In recent years, Ortiz has written music for jazz ensembles,
orchestras, dance companies, chamber groups, and feature films. In 2012, he
composed and conducted “Santiarican Blues Suite,” a five-part score that
references a wide timeline of Cuban, Afro-Haitian, and contemporary classical
vocabulary that received 4.5 stars from DownBeat Magazine. His most recent
release, the acclaimed Hidden Voices, features an adventurous trio with bassist
Eric Revis and drummer Gerald Cleaver, conjuring boundary-stretching music
where Ortiz’ Afro-Cuban and jazz roots are implied, but not explicitly stated.
Over the years he has received numerous accolades, including the Doris Duke
Impact Award in 2014. He has also recorded collaboratively with bassist Michael
Janisch and pianist/electtonic musician Bob Gluck, and played, toured, or
recorded with Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Wadada Leo Smith, Don
Byron, Greg Osby, Wallace Roney, Nicole Mitchell, Steve Turre, Cameron Brown,
and Nasheet Waits, to name a few.
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