Inside Rhythmic Falls Aruán Ortiz with Andrew Cyrille & Mauricio Herrera

• 1 Lucero Mundo 03:13
• 2 Conversation with the Oaks 06:12
• 3 Marímbula’s Mood 05:11
• 4 Golden Voice (Changüí) 07:55
• 5 De Cantos y Ñáñigos 06:39
• 6 Inside Rhythmic Falls, Pt. 1 (Sacred Codes) 02:42
• 7 Argelier’s Disciple 07:08
• 8 Inside Rhythmic Falls, Pt. 2 (Echoes) 06:26
• 9 El Ashé de la Palabra 01:55
• 10 Para Ti Nengón 02:01
• Total Runtime 49:22

Info for Inside Rhythmic Falls

Aruán Ortiz has long dreamt of making an album that would evoke "a cascade of rhythms going over me, almost dragging me to fall." This feeling of being overtaken by rhythm is one he knows well, having spent his first 23 years in Cuba. Born in 1973, Ortiz grew up Santiago de Cuba – the cradle of Afro-Cuban music and a veritable "vortex of rhythm".

Ortiz captures the symphony of everyday life in Oriente on his arresting new album, Inside Rhythmic Falls. "I think of myself as a storyteller," Ortiz says, "and each of the album's ten tracks tells a story about Oriente province." For this project Ortiz has chosen Cuban percussionist Mauricio Herrera and one of the best drummers of today's jazz to his side. Andrew Cyrille was born in Brooklyn, New York into a Haitian family. "Rhythm is life … the space of time danced through," and inside rhythmic falls everyone is possessed by the dance, both leading and following.

The New York jazz critic Adam Schatz writes in the Liner notes: "When music is this glorious, it has the power not just to conjure spirits but to inspire belief and help us experience the marvelous. Or, as Carpentier also put it, the marvelous real."

Aruán Ortiz, piano
Andrew Cyrille, drums
Mauricio Herrera, percussion

Recorded May 24 & 25, 2019, by Chris Allen at Sear Sound Studio NYC
Mixed by Chris Allen. Mastered by Michael Fossenkemper at TurtleTone Studio NYC

No albums found.

Aruán Ortiz
Pianist, violist, and composer Aruán Ortiz – born in Santiago de Cuba, and resident of Brooklyn – has been an active figure in the progressive jazz and avant-garde scene in the US for more than 15 years.

Named “one of the most creative and original composers in the world” (Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge), he has written music for jazz ensembles, orchestras, dance companies, chamber groups, and feature films, incorporating influences from contemporary classical music, Cuban Haitian rhythms, and avant-garde improvisation. Aruán consistently strives to break stylistic musical boundaries.

Since his arrival in the United States, Aruán has played, toured, or recorded with jazz luminaries such as Wadada Leo Smith, Don Byron, Greg Osby, Wallace Roney, Nicole Mitchell, Cameron Brown, Michael Formanek, William Parker, Adam Rudolph, Andrew Cyrille, Henry Grimes, Marshall Allen, Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver Lake, Rufus Reid, Graham Haynes, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Nasheet Waits. He has also collaborated with choreographers José Mateo, Danis Mora, and Milena Zullo; filmmakers Ben Chace, Mariona Lloreta, and Mónica Rovira; poets Abiodun Oyewole from The Last Poets; writer/poet/filmmaker Mtume Gant; DJ Logic and Val Jeanty Inc.; and renowned German writers Angelika Hentschel and Anna Breitenbach.

Aruán has received numerous accolades including the Composer Fellowship Award at Vermont College of Fine Arts (2016); the Doris Duke Impact Award (2014); the Composers Now Creative Residency at Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (2014); the Jerome Foundation Travel & Study Grant (2013); Latin Jazz Corner’s Arranger of the Year (2011) for his contribution on the album, “El Cumbanchero” by flutist Mark Weinstein (Jazzheads, 2011); Fundación Autor, SGAE, and Generalitat de Catalunya study grants (2002); Semifinalist, Jas Hennessy Piano Solo Competition, Montreux, Switzerland (2001); and Best Jazz Interpretation, Festival de Jazz in Vic, Spain (2000).

He also performed on Grammy Award winning singer/bassist Esperanza Spalding’s trio debut album, "Junjo" (Ayva Música, 2006). All About Jazz said, “The trio has…splendid flashes of precision from pianist Aruán Ortiz who is excellent throughout.”

His 2010 album "Alameda" (Fresh Sound New Talent), which combines modern jazz, contemporary classical music, and Afro-Cuban rhythms, received four stars from the UK based magazine Jazzwise and was named one of the top ten jazz CDs of the year. In response to the quartet's second album, "Orbiting" (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2012), DownBeat magazine called Aruán "...one of the most versatile and exciting pianists of his generation." The album also received four stars from Jazzwise Magazine and Jazz Journal in the UK, and was chosen as one of the top ten contemporary jazz albums of 2012 by Something Else! webzine.

Aruán’s work consolidates intense research and development on specific themes related to architectural patterns and information drawn from non-musical contexts. Inspired by Afro-Haitian traditions and how those traditions can be expressed through multiple genres, Aruán’s music channels his sound through avant-garde and progressive jazz, serial music, and contemporary classical language, focusing on decentralized roles and multiples themes and interacting collectively in ways similar to a string quartet.

His unique musical vision has been covered in magazines and newspapers in Europe and the US including Jazz ‘n’ More (Swizerland), The Guardian (UK), Expresso (Portugal), The New York Times, DownBeat, JazzTimes, Jazziz, The Boston Globe, Chicago Jazz Magazine, San Diego Union Tribune, and All About Jazz (US), Jazzpodium (Germany), Musica Jazz, Il Muro Magazine, Il Corriere della Sera and Jazz Convention (Italy), The Ottawa Citizen (Canada), The Irish Times (Ireland), and Way Out West (Japan), among many others.

In 2013, Aruán collaborated with the New York-based presenter Revive Music, to produce and curate Music & Architecture, a series of concerts featuring some of the most legendary, forward-thinking, and creative improvisers on the New York scene. These concerts inspired by Iannis Xenakis’s book “Music and Architecture,” were focused on translating patterns, symbols, and structures related to serialism and expressionism in contemporary music, but unusual to jazz improvisation. After the success of this series, journalist Tomas Pena stated, "...The music evoked images of mathematical equations, great architectural works and brought to mind the New York loft scene of the 1970s, where free jazz reigned supreme."

Aruán’s artistic curiosity has led to projects beyond the jazz landscape. He received a commission from the José Mateo Ballet Theater on the occasion of their 25th anniversary to compose the score for a new choreographic work, "Pagano or No." This score, heralded as “one of the most significant works of music" by Latin Jazz Network, was recorded on the album Santiarican Blues Suite released by Sunnyside Records in 2012 and premiered by the Camerata Urbana Ensemble at the Next Wave Festival at BAM in New York. In 2013, Aruán wrote "Collage," an original piece for the ballet commissioned by the YOUME Orchestra. This piece was premiered at the Casa del Jazz Festival in Rome, Italy by the YOUME Orchestra, conducted by Aruán with choreography by the Milena Zullo Ballet. The same year, Aruán was invited by the University of Albany to conducted “Variations,” a free improvisation piece for Orchestra and prepared piano, performed by The University-Community Symphony Orchestra and pianist Bob Gluck.

He holds a MFA in Music Composition by Vermont College of Fine Arts, and as a composer, his growing portfolio include works such as Two Short Stories for String Quartet performed by Secret String Quartet and New MUSE String Quartet, Pandemonium in Clave for percussion trio and piano premiered by Talujon Percussion Ensemble, Ogguere (when the soul of the earth dances around spectral motions) for brass quintet premiered by Brooklyn Brass, and the upcoming Hints of Leguedé for Solo Flute, and Afro-Haitian Living in the Midst of a Twisted Globe for violin, cello and piano trio, premiered in February 8th, 2018.

His most recent albums released by Intakt Records have received 5 stars from prestigious jazz magazines such as Jazziz and DownBeat. Hidden Voices (2016) was lauded as “a solid and unique new sound in today’s jazz world” by Matthew Fiander in PopMatters. And his solo piano effort Cub(an)ism (2017) was called "a genius exercise in the exploration of depth and perception that reveals a bright new wrinkle in the relationship between music and mathematics, reimagining Afro-Haitian Gaga rhythms, Afro-Cuban rumba and Yambú into heavily improvised meditations on modernism that recall John Cage and Paul Bley. Stunning." (Ron Hart, The Observer).

In 2014, Aruán composed the score for the feature film "Sin Alas,” the first American movie filmed on Cuban soil in 50 years. This film was nominated by the Curaçao Film Festival for the Yellow Robin Award in 2015. Aruán’s work will also be heard on the Spanish short film "The Beating."

He has been invited as a visiting artist to perform and teach at Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA (2006 and 2007); Tanglewood, MA (2006); Royal Academy of Music (2011) and Trinity College (2012) in London; Campus Artístico Can Geli, Girona (2013); Percento Musica, Rome (2011, 2012); Scuola Popolare di Musica, Fermo, Italy (2012); Krakow Jazz School (2014); Institut Musical of Formation Professionnelle, Provence, France (2014); University of Jalapa, Mexico (2013); Jazz Academy Novi Sad, Serbia (2013); Long Island University, NYC (2014); University of Albany, (2012 -2013); California Jazz Conservatory, Berkeley (2014); and Brookhaven College School of the Arts, Dallas, (2014), among many others. He has taught at Berklee College of Music and Queens College CUNY.

This album contains no booklet.