The Aruán Ortiz Trio’s new album, Hidden Voices, is a challenging and rewarding document of forward-thinking improvisational music. The 42-year-old Brooklyn-based pianist and composer pays homage on the album to early musical impressions from his native Cuba and formative musical influences from the jazz tradition.
Accompanying seven original compositions are renditions of Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman standards as well as a traditional tune common in Cuban festivities, “Uno, dos y tres, que paso más chévere.” The improvisation takes place at the outer reaches of tonality and across a wide dynamic range, making Ortiz’s “Cuban Cubism” ill-suited for middlebrow cocktail party background music but highly recommended to devotees of cutting-edge jazz and adventurous ears in general.
