Cuban pianist Aruán Ortiz reflects on his upbringing in Santiago de Cuba, evoking the cascades of daily sound and rhythm he heard there, through compositions performed with the trio of fellow Cuban Mauricio Herrera on percussion & marimbula, and drummer Andrew Cyrille, Emeline Michel and Marlene Ramirez-Cancio providing vocals on the powerful opening invocation.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2020 Country: Austria Packaging: Jewel Case Recorded at Sear Sound Studio, in New York City, New York, on May 24th and 25th, 2019, by Chris Allen.
6. Inside Rhythmic Falls. Part I (Sacred Codes) 2:43
7. Argelier's Disciple 7:09
8. Inside Rhythmic Falls. Part II (Echoes) 6:27
9. El Ashe de la Palabra 1:56
10. Para ti Nengon 2:02
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descriptions, reviews, &c.
"Aruan 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."-Intakt
"The thing that's most attractive about Cuban-born Aruán Ortiz is not that his jazz is informed by the culturally-rich music of his homeland; it's that he uses his background as a springboard for pushing jazz to its limits. His compositions and piano reach toward freedom, ending up in a place that is an abstraction of what inspires them, while also writing a new chapter to the book of Afro-Cuban jazz.
Inside Rhythmic Falls is a direct acknowledgement that the music originating from the Cuban Oriente province of his birthplace is driven heavily by its rhythms. That's why for this project, Ortiz is supported only by rhythmists: percussionist Mauricio Herrera and the great icon of progressive drums, Andrew Cyrille. This certainly isn't a trio in the normal sense of the word, and often, it isn't even a trio performing; all combinations of the three are used throughout the album. And Ortiz means business when he stated his intention of this album to be about the rhythm, as the opener "Lucero Mundo" is Cyrille and Herrera only.
"Conversation With The Oaks" is where Ortiz's piano is actually introduced and after a fitful start, Ortiz blurts out chords in a random fashion but Cyrille confidently finds the right pulse for it. After a while it becomes clear that the pianist's free playing has a rhythmic purpose to it that's even stronger than the harmonic one.
The full trio finally comes together, for "Marimbula's Mood." Herrera plays a marimbula, which is akin to bigger version of an African kalimba, and it's lower resonance almost occupies the bass area of the performance, though the notes don't necessarily correspond to Ortiz's piano. Instead, it serves as an anchor to the roaming around done by Ortiz and Cyrille.
"Golden Voice (Changüi)" is a flirtatious give-and-take between Ortiz and Cyrille, who taps on his toms with the dexterity of a highly-skilled pianist (like, say, Ortiz). Ortiz continues his mastery of the space between the notes with "De Cantos y Ñáñigos," those spaces being filled up amply by Cyrille's brushes. Cyrille and Herrera combine for a trance-like barrage of percussion for "Inside rhythmic falls. Part I (Sacred Codes)."
"Argelier's Disciple" is Ortiz leaving behind impressionist blotches that Cyrille and Herrera dance around. He ruminates over a small cluster of notes for "Inside rhythmic falls. Part II (Echoes)" that evolves into insistent, rhythmic patterns around which Cyrille exploits.
The album concludes with a pair of brief sketches, the parched piano/percussion interlude "El Ashé de la palabra" and another Ortiz/Herrera collaboration, "Para ti nengón," where they sing this traditional Cuban song over the impulsive improv they are playing. That two-minute moment seems to encapsulate the message of Inside Rhythmic Falls, using the time-worn beats and sounds of Cuba to inform something that seems of another world and another century.
Aruán Ortiz's bold new conception for Afro-Cuban jazz continues by delving deeper into the rhythmic patterns and turning them inside-out much as he has previously done with the harmonics of the music."- S. Victor Aaron, Something Else