Un avvio in medias res è quanto cui siamo avvezzi in un progetto di Aruán Ortiz, disvelante ingredienti e dinamiche del lavoro; tuttora pervasivi i più caratteristici richiami ai segni afro-cubano-haitiani dominanti nel precedente album Inside Rhythm Falls (2018), la sequenza esordisce con la pressante, virulenta impulsività ritmica di Shaw ‘Nuff (Siento un bombo), curiosa e dinamica sintesi tra una hit a firma del tandem Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Parker innestata su un’inquieta vena propulsiva di colore latino, molto caratteristica nella prima parte del brano, segnato da un incisivo lavoro della batteria da cui si discosta in parte la mano sinistra della tastiera, di suo capricciosa ed erratica, conducente ad un interludio d’impianto più disarticolato e di più aperto sentire free, chiudendosi con la cornice ritmica e coloristica dell’attacco.
Il pianista ed autore nativo di Santiago di Cuba, ora stanziale a Brooklyn dopo un periodo europeo, segna con Serranías | Sketchbook for Piano Trio il suo sesto apporto all’etichetta elvetica Intakt, riproponendosi dopo l’intero periodo pandemico (in cui aveva però segnato una qualche presenza entro il James Brandon Lewis quartet) per ribadire la peculiarità delle sue visoni e traiettorie, altamente partecipative entro l’arena neo-free nordamericana, ma certamente non dimentico di un’articolata formazione classico-tradizionale e non meno delle proprie radici.

Estrema sintesi su cui concorda il diretto commento introduttivo di Ortiz: “Nel nuovo album “Serranías: Sketchbook for piano trio” insieme al leggendario batterista John Betsch e al bassista Brad Jones, continuo a celebrare, reinterpretare e rivisitare l’eredità culturale della mia città natale, Santiago de Cuba, come ho fatto nelle registrazioni precedenti. Per questo album mi sono ispirato al poeta Jesús Cos Causse, al pittore Julio Girona, a generi musicali come changüi e guajiras, a motivi ritmici afro-haitiani e a canzoni “carnevalesche” come “Siento un bombo”. Ho integrato una varietà di stili che mi hanno influenzato e abitano naturalmente il mio processo creativo come la musica seriale, le tecniche di composizione classica, il jazz d’avanguardia e, naturalmente, le poliritmie”. Quanto era in apparenza meno dichiarato in precedenti lavori quali Live in Zürich o Random Dances and (A)Tonalities, qui sembra riacquisire preminenza, ed in sostanza pervasività nella dinamica economia dell’album, ed a ciò sembrano concorrere anche i titoli della sequenza.

Introdotta in forma di spettrale carillon, En Forma de Guajira sfugge all’incasellamento ritmico ricercando un’espansione del proprio, inquieto spirito danzante; provocatoria e quasi enigmatica l’imbastitura di Memorias del Monte, abitata dai grappoli di note e dalle figurazioni ipnotiche della tastiera.
Dominante raccoglimento in Los Tres Golpes (dal pianista cubano ottocentesco Ignacio Cervantes), montante per drammaticità entro un clima chiaroscurale ed impressionista; il solistico Canto de tambores y caracoles spicca da subito non solo per angolosità e spettralità ma nel suo complesso per l’andamento “difficile” conferito ad un passaggio introvertito e ben poco concessivo, che in qualche modo spicca entro la sequenza per il carattere elusivo ed idiosincratico.

L’eponima Serranías (termine che definisce terreni di montagna), aprente su un asciutto solo a quattro corde, evolve verso geometrie sfuggenti, in cui i tre strumenti evitano ogni amalgama esprimendo uno straniante collage di vitree schegge sonore; Like a Changüi (Montuno) si riferisce ad una forma stilistica propria dell’area di Guantanamo, ripresa non letteralmente ed esposta con informale vaghezza.
Un paio di concisi interludi è aperto dalle sapide frenesie della nervosa Huellas… , completandosi nell’andamento ancor più concitato della proterva … and Shadows. Catartico l’epilogo in Lullaby for the End Times, ricomposizione degli umori che con placida solennità, non priva di senso misterico, dichiara un’implicita riconciliazione con le tradizionali scansioni del piano trio.

Dalla generazione includente i David Virelles, Fabian Almazan o Roberto Fonseca, etc. (tutti comunque distinti per orientamento e stilemi) il Nostro seguita a caratterizzarsi per una personale ricerca, su questi solchi invitandoci ad un’appagante scorreria al confine dei filoni suddetti; in occasione del proprio cinquantesimo compleanno, nonché del ventennale della propria installazione negli USA, Aruán Ortiz rilascia un’ulteriore sintesi tra il sound nativo, i nuovi trends nonché la articolate ascendenze (non ultime le aperte influenze, da Monk a Cecil Taylor), rilanciando almeno in parte le ambizioni della propria progettualità, che tra i propri ingredienti enuncia personali tattiche (poli)ritmiche e rischio fraseologico.

https://offtopicmagazine.net/2023/07/19/aruan-ortiz-trio-serranias/

1973年生まれのキューバン・ピアニストが放つ新トリオ作

2020年の前作『Inside Rhythmic Falls』でアンドリュー・シリルとトリオを組んだオルティスが、今回はベテランのベッチと合体。アフロ・ キューバン・ジャズの開拓者であるガレスピー&パーカーの楽曲に新たな光を当てた①で始まる全11曲は、バークリー音大入学を機に米国へ移住してからの20年と自身のルーツを重ねて, “Sketchbook For Piano Trio”の副題が示すセルフ・バイオグラフィーのような趣向を感じさせる。淡々と語り紡ぐ子守唄⑪で、意外な終幕を迎える。

Three distinctive approaches to post-bop piano from Aruán Ortiz, Alexander Hawkins and Marie Krüttli

Three piano albums from Swiss label Intakt that offer three distinctive takes on post-bop freedom. Most rooted in main-stream post-bop- though highly individual nonetheless is Aruán Ortiz's Serranías. Alexander Hawkins radically recon-ceives the jazz piano trio, while Marie Krüttli offers lyrical free improvisation.

British pianist Alexander Hawkins's trio features Neil Charles (bass) and Stephen Davis (drums). It was formed in 2012, and as Bill Shoemaker's sleevenotes argue, continues to stretch the jazz piano trio's horizons. Jazz grooves predominate, but they're given abstract colourings often taken from free improv and contemporary composition. The edgy "Sarabande Celestial" is only remotely related to the stately baroque dance, with pungent lines and stabbing chords against subdued but eerie electronics. "Unlimited Growth Increases The Divide" is a slow ballad, more lyrical than dirge-like. "Fuga, The Fast One" has increasingly furious piano over a thunderous bass pedal point. "Canon Celestial" is free piano and bass against mechanically ticking drums. A stellar release.

Marie Krüttli comes from French-speaking Switzerland. She began as a classical pianist, but got interested in jazz. Transparence is her first solo album. As she explains in an online interview - Google translated from French - "Silence and space are necessary for improvised music. This allows inspiration to come to us". She cites Craig Taborn and Jason Moran as influences, but on this evidence, they're closer to jazz than she is. The Bösendorfer piano she plays is a less common choice of instrument, but she likes its warmth.

In other projects Krüttli uses electronic effects, but the textures here are purely acoustic. There are some prepara-tions on "Departure", she placed an old key in the piano, inducing shimmering and rattling effects. The sublimely slow "Exploration" is freely but lyrically ruminative, with prominent use of the sustain pedal. Throughout, the playing is open, lucid and plangent, an outstanding example of melodic free improv.

Aruán Ortiz, from Santiago de Cuba, is a leading presence in New York avant jazz, whose work has its roots in Cuban tradition. Serranías, an impressive trio album with bassist Brad Jones and veteran drummer John Betsch, marks the pianist's 50th birthday. Its Cuban toques, rumba and Afro-Haitian influences colour post-bop jazz. Montunos a kind of ostinato or vamp - are a motif.

The album highlight is a hugely exciting interpretation - or rather, deconstruction of bebop anthem "Shaw 'Nuff" by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. The classic misterioso opening vamp is extended to three minutes, followed by a theme statement that soon lurches almost into atonality. "Memorias Del Monte" has a rapid motoric theme that becomes increasingly fragmented and free. The haunting and very slow "Lullaby For The End Times" is rather reminiscent of Charlie Haden's composition "Silence". While David Virelles is for me the most outstanding of a remarkable group of Cuban pianists - also including Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chucho Valdés, Hilario Durán - Ortiz runs him close. A challenging and very rewarding listen.

The categories of Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban music are convenient fictions, a way to collect and identify a lot of great, important music. But they can also sadly limit listeners' attention to and awareness of music that has roots in those traditions but expands out in unexpected, nontraditional directions.

Take Cuban pianist Aruàn Ortiz, who has been a major figure in jazz since his arrival in America early this century. The clave is there in his playing, as he pointed out recently across a Zoom connection from Europe, where he was on tour with bassist Brad Jones and (alternately) drummers John Betsch and Jeff Ballard. But Ortiz is a true modernist; when he plays, it often becomes an opportunity to worry a succinct idea through myriad variations, or explore how many harmonic relationships he can develop out of simple material. That makes for a style of playing that is elegant, sinuous, capable of both introspection and energetic extroversion. An Ortiz solo can be a slender path like a river, or a triumphant arch, like a mountain.

"I work with the melody of rhythm a lot, like building rhythms I generated with lines, and then make them fit into an architecture of style," Ortiz says. He also looks back to his country of origin: "Of course, coming from Cuba, I have a natural approach to rhythm... but not in the way of creating patterns," he adds. That is (he explains), he does not create repeated sections as in Afro-Cuban music. Instead, it's "the way to generate a kind of language...where everything is very liquid and it could disintegrate. The elasticity of rhythm for me is very fascinating, and how you could build layers of different micro-rhythmic cells."

In a historical sense, this is classic modernism, reaching back to older ideas and using them in a new context, and when it comes to jazz and spontaneous music-making, these elements (many of which can be found in Medieval European music) become new each time Ortiz builds something with them. "When you hear all of them, you hear one or two things happening, but it's just like little cells that are one on top of another, and that is another approach to polyphony."

Ortiz' flexible and distinctive personal voice balances rhythm, melody and especially harmony, the foundation of his modernism. He learned the fundamentals from Charlie Banacos, a pianist and teacher with influential harmonic concepts that have become staples at leading jazz schools like Berklee College of Music, the New England Conservatory, and the New School; however, he has developed them in his own way.

"My creative process," he says, "let's put it this way: I've started moving away from the tonal center, and then to organize intervals. It could be based on combinations of intervals, like pitch collections. So you have a group of pitches, three or four, and I find a relation with all intervallic organizations. Then I go as far as I can to try to move through a path, and organizing it allows me to go back to the center."

He also credits pianist, composer and bandleader Muhal Richard Abrams and reed player Don Byron. The former showed him "compositional rhythm-how to combine harmony, rhythm, and melody at the same time." From the latter, with whom he made the excellent duo recording Random Dances and (A)tonalities, he learned ways to integrate his harmonic studies with the range of jazz and jazz-related traditions that Byron brings to the table.

His discography as a leader includes Live in Zurich with Jones and drummer Chad Taylor, Inside Rhythmic Falls with drummer Andrew Cyrille-who Ortiz describes as "a poet of colors" - and percussionist Mauricio Herrera, and most recently, Serranías: Sketchbook for Piano Trio, with Jones and Betsch (all albums are on the Swiss Intakt label).

Ortiz has also been an invaluable member of other groups, especially saxophonist James Brandon Lewis' Molecular Quartet, where he shows how powerful his playing can be, and also how comfortable he is playing with stacked harmonies, while always ready to choose freedom as the destination away from the center.

The pianist always plays with a sense of purpose and meaning: there's intention behind each note. His concepts may organize how an individual piece of music works, but also seem to be fundamentally a way of expressing his own voice. "I'm not looking for consonance or dissonance," he explains. "I'm looking for a release of tension. I'm looking for different parameters when I play and compose, like if you have emptiness and you can have activity, so you have something very fast, very slow.

"In a way, that creates an arc, a gesture. I work with a lot of gestures, and if I play something very atonal or dense, I tend to empty that. I create a sense that you're going somewhere, that you're moving in a sort of cycle. I always focus first on the design of it; here's how I know that the pieces are moving in the clear way. All those parameters are always present when I play-that's why I love to improvise and to ...

Aruan Ortiz est un pianiste cubain établi à New York depuis une vingtaine d’années. Il a enregistré une quinzaine d’albums qui vont du solo au quintet en passant par des duos (Don Byron ou Robert Gluck) et surtout des albums en trio piano-contrebasse-batterie, comme ce « Serranias », sous-titré « Sketchbook For Piano Trio ». L’album débute par une relecture très nerveuse de « Shaw ’Nuff », composition de Dizzy Gillespie et de Charlie Parker. Il y a une autre reprise sur le disque : « Los Tres Golpes » du compositeur cubain du 19ème siècle Ignacio Cervantes. Les neuf autres compositions, écrites par Aruan Ortiz, confirment ce que l’on ressent à l’écoute de ces deux titres : il y a dans l’approche d’Ortiz une part venant de la tradition, incarnée par ces pionniers du be-bop, une attraction évidente de ses origines, la musique caribéenne, mais, surtout, une influence très free et expérimentale (son jeu rappelle parfois Cecil Taylor et son monde chaotique), ce qui rend son univers assez hybride, unique et, pour tout dire, passionnant. Au côté d’Ortiz, deux musiciens ayant une longue expérience dans le monde du free et qui le supportent à merveille : Brad Jones à la contrebasse (il a beaucoup joué avec Muhal Richard Abrams, pianiste qu’Ortiz vénère) et John Betsch à la batterie (que l’on a pu beaucoup écouter auprès de Jim Pepper ou de Steve Lacy ; Aruan Ortiz aime s’entourer de batteurs légendaires : avant Betsch, son batteur était Andrew Cyrille).

Voici un disque fort, qui se démarque des habituels trios piano-contrebasse-batterie, une musique qui n’a pas besoin d’aller racoler dans le répertoire « pop ». Aruan Ortiz est un artiste singulier et innovant. Ne passez pas à côté.

https://jazzmania.be/aruan-ortiz-trio-serranias/

De Cubaanse pianist Aruán Ortiz had wat te vieren. Het was twintig jaar geleden dat hij zijn muziek wereldwijd wilde bekendmaken vanop Amerikaanse bodem en hij werd intussen vijftig. Een feestelijke aangelegenheid die hij in de verf zette met een sterk muzikaal statement.

Bij de openingstrack zit je al meteen midden de actie van een helse achtervolging in een film noir. Een aaneenrijgen van staccato scènes aan de hand van Gillespie en Parker hun ‘Shaw ‘Nuff’. De extra latin accolade hoort erbij als gegoten evenals de lichte invloeden van Ortiz zijn mentor Muhal Richard Abrams. Maar evenzeer de compositietechnieken van onder meer Boulez, Stravinsky, Stockhausen en Sjostakovitsj schemeren door. Ontegensprekelijk doet dit denken aan de kubistische ontwerpen van revolutionaire kunstenaars als Braque en Picasso.

De ritmepatronen bepalen telkens de basis van waaruit Ortiz zijn composities laat vertrekken. Bassist Brad Jones en drummer John Betsch haken steeds gretig in en ondersteunen de pianist onvoorwaardelijk. Inclusief een eerbetoon aan de Cubaanse componist Ignacio Cervantes via diens ‘Los Tres Golpes’. Nog iemand die Ortiz hier in de kijker plaatst, is etno-musicoloog en componist Argeliers León. Hij voegt aan dit alles nog een extra aantal traditionele Cubaanse ritmen toe.

Op die manier werd ‘Serranías’ een uiterst eclectisch album. In ’Canto De Tambores Y Caracoles’ trekt Oritz er tussendoor nog even solo op uit. Een experimentele toon die in trio verdergezet wordt met ‘Huellas…’ en de al even gedeconstrueerde titeltrack. Afronden gebeurt met een citaat van Cecil Taylor, “If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process”.

Rituele santería jazz als het ware. Indien dit nog maar het schetsboek is (de ondertitel van de cd luidt ‘Sketchbook For Piano Trio’), hoe klinken dan de definitieve versies? Het doet alleszins uitkijken naar een vervolg, live en/of op cd.

https://www.jazzhalo.be/reviews/cdlpk7-reviews/a/aru%C3%A1n-ortiz-trio-serran%C3%ADas/?fbclid=IwAR3G-mRmyO5Tfo47J4F01WHcMSNdPyQ6b1dzoi5KTHWdtbZOiZHTkQKtNbU

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Einflussreiche Reise

Geboren in Santiago de Cuba, hat sich Aruán Ortiz (49) nach Abschluss des Konservatoriums auf die Reise gemacht.
Mit 23 zog er nach Barcelona, wo er die europäische Musik, Malerei und Dichtung studierte. Via Boston landete er in New York. Dort wird er als umfassend gebildeter Musikerneuerer gefeiert. Auf dem neuen Album bringt er seine Ein-flüsse zusammen: die Folkore seiner Heimat Kuba mit der europäischen Kunstmusik und der US-Avantgarde.

Der kubanische Pianist Aruán Ortiz arbeitet stets eng zwischen seinen afro-kubanischen Wurzeln und der New Yorker Avantgarde verhaftet und hat seinen einzigartigen künstlerischen Anspruch auf Intakt Records bereits mit Improvisiergrößen wie Andrew Cyrille, Gerald Cleaver, Eric Revis oder Chad Taylor kundgetan. Der hier agierende Bassist Brad Jones tauchte zuletzt auf Ortiz 2016 Live Aufnahme aus Zürich auf; Schlagzeuger John Betsch ist der Neue im Bunde und brilliert mit ähnlich virtuosem, zugleich verzwicktem Schlagzeugspiel wie zuletzt Chad Taylor. Über 11 Stücke hinweg ist das Trio im regen Austausch miteinander, dabei wechselt Ortiz zwischen repetitiven Staccato-Läufen und lang-ausklingenden, pedalschweren Dronen hin und her, wobei die brodelnde rhythmische Unterströmung, einem aktiven Vulkan gleich, stets auszubrechen droht. In der Pianosolomeditation,Canto de Tambores y Caracoles" erinnert Ortiz' Spiel mit Dynamik und Klangfarbe an Craig Taborn, anderswo wird einstweilen deutlich, dass er seine musikalischen Wurzeln mit Landsmann David Virelles teilt. Stets überraschende, eigenständige Trio-kunst.

Zum Einstieg eine wahre Gillespie-Parker-Rakete: Wenn Aruán Ortiz >>Shaw 'Nuff (Siento un bombo)<< zündet, dann werden auf schnellstem Wege jene Umlaufbahnen erreicht, in welchen die Gravitationsgesetze des Bebop ohne bremsende Wirkung gelten. Die munter agierende, ja springlebendige Trio-Crew präsentiert sich in aufgeräumter Atmosphäre. Offenkundig waren Bassist Brad Jones und Drummer John Betsch im September 2022 bereits auf Touren, bevor die Mikrofone in den Winterthurer Hardstudios eingeschaltet wurden. Die trotz anspruchsvoller kompositorischer Vorlagen an den Tag gelegte Spiellust kommt solistischen Extravaganzen und rhythmisch vertrackten Richtungswechseln gleichermaßen zugute. Auch gelingt es, wie im Falle von Ignacio Cervantes' >>Los tres golpes<<, mühelos längere musikalische Wegstrecken ohne Ermüdungserscheinungen zurückzulegen. Das überwiegend von Ortiz mitgebrachte Material fordert und forciert die improvisatorischen Kräfte seines aktuellen Trios. Kurzum: Zwei Jahre nach dem vorzüglichen Santiago de Cuba-Album >>Inside Rhythmic Falls<< (damals mit Andrew Cyrille und Mauricio Herrera, vgl. JP 5-6, 2020) gelingen dem Kubaner Aruán Ortiz neuerlich Höhenflüge. Die Ein-spielung demonstriert - und verlangt - Schwindelfreiheit.