The Jazz Standard Podcast: Storytelling!!! by Brenda Sesane for South African Kaya 959 radio.
Aruán Ortiz is a Cuban-born pianist, composer, and scholar whose work sits at the crossroads of Afro-Cuban ritual, contemporary jazz language, and structural experimentation. Whether in solo piano, trio settings, or extended ensembles, Aruán Ortiz approaches music as inquiry; he asks how rhythm carries history, how form can hold identity, and how improvisation can remain free while still being accountable to ancestry.
A translator of traditions, a believer of intense listening, Aruan Ortiz tells about his musical exploits writing for jazz ensembles, orchestras, dance companies and breaking stylistic musical boundaries.
Just what we need to get us back on the saddle.