Jazz Articles about Aruán Ortiz

About Aruán Ortiz

Radio & Podcasts

Aruán Ortiz live at BIMHUIS Amsterdam

by BIMHUIS
December 14, 2018

Aruán Ortiz is a rising piano star of such a sweeping contemporary technique, imagination and keyboard-power, to be an enthralling one-man band too. The Cuban-born musician incorporates different forms in his compositions, resulting in a unique new style which reflects his fascination for modern classical music as well as Afro-Cuban traditions, and for great jazz innovators such as Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk. On this solo set, based on his album Cub(an)ism released last year on the Swiss ...

Album Review

Don Byron/Aruan Ortiz: Random Dances And (A)Tonalities

Read "Random Dances And (A)Tonalities" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
December 8, 2018

Jazz albums have a history of featuring cool cover art, from drummer Chico Hamilton's Ellington Suite (World Pacific, 1959) and bassist Charles Mingus' Ah Um (Columbia, 1959) to almost all of the ECM Records catalog. Maybe grabbing the music-shopper's eye helps in the pulling of the wallet out the pocket or the purse. On the terrific duo album, Random Dances And (A)tonalities, from reedman Don Byron and pianist Aruan Ortiz, that visual introduction is four squares set together to make ...

Album Review

Don Byron / Aruán Ortiz: Random Dances And (A)Tonalities

Read "Random Dances And (A)Tonalities" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
October 27, 2018

Two highly accomplished artists--one long-established, the other solidifying his legacy--are brought together on Random Dances And (A)Tonalities. This duo outing features clarinetist and saxophonist Don Byron and pianist Aruán Ortiz. The two gifted composers have been playing together, at Ortiz's initial request, since 2014 but in larger ensembles. In late 2017 Byron and Ortiz met in a studio in Zürich, Switzerland to record this eclectic set which plays to both artists' broad musical sensibilities. One of the most ...

Album Review

Winged Serpents: Six Encomiums for Cecil Taylor

Read "Six Encomiums for Cecil Taylor" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
September 17, 2018

The link between the late Cecil Taylor and the members of the Winged Serpents collective is one driven by admiration and inspiration, from a distance, rather than through collaboration. Taylor, in fact, had only shared billing twice in his half-century of recording. The Mary Lou Williams duet Embraced (Pablo, 1977) and Max Roach's 1979 recording of Historic Concerts (Soul Note, 1984) constitute the entire library of his communal projects and date back at least a generation before any of the ...

Album Review

Aruán Ortiz Trio: Live in Zürich

Read "Live in Zürich" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
May 16, 2018

Cuban pianist Aruán Ortiz just goes from strength to strength on his third release on the Intakt imprint, although it is his twelfth overall. While most of the repertoire on Live In Zurich appears on previous albums, what he does with it here, through dramatically extending and mashing pieces together, is nothing short of remarkable. This date at the Unerhört! Festival in the Swiss capital was the last of a two-week European tour, and that really shows in the tightness ...

Album Review

Aruán Ortiz Trio with Brad Jones and Chad Taylor: Live in Zürich

Read "Live in Zürich" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
April 1, 2018

Live in Zürich is the twelfth album from Cuban avant-garde composer and pianist Aruán Ortiz. Of those recordings widely available in the US, Ortiz has worked with a variety of group formats. His quartet released Orbiting (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2013), was followed by a trio outing on Hidden Voices (Intakt Records, 2016) and two successive solo recordings, Cub(an)ism (Intakt Records, 2017) and the vinyl-only Cuban Nocturne (Newvelle Records, 2017).Ortiz continues to grow a global fan base after ...

Album Review

Aruan Ortiz: Cuban Nocturne

Read "Cuban Nocturne" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
November 7, 2017

Cuban pianist and composer Aruán Ortiz started playing piano at the age of nine though his primary instruments were violin and viola. As a teen he began playing arrangements of popular Cuban songs in a school where he was already the director of the band. At fifteen he was first exposed to the music of Chick Corea, setting him on a journey to explore jazz. Cuban Nocturne is fifth of six second-season releases from the vinyl-only Newvelle Records label. The ...