It doesn't happen often that a musician shows up for an interview Monday morning at 9AM. As Aruán Ortiz from Barcelona appears on the webcam—T-shirt, turtleneck jacket, cup of tea within reach—he has already had a consultation with flamenco dancer María Moreno about the dance video he watched that morning. She is one of his guides in flamenco world. Which compás (flamenco rhythm) is used in that video, he wanted to know. And why is it so magical?

His big dark eyes sparkle again behind glasses with thick black frames as he talks about it. The Cuban pianist Aruán Ortiz (48), born in Santiago de Cuba, loves to do research. He can sometimes immerse himself in music history. He is praised for his inventive compositions in jazz and New York's avant-garde scene. In his piano playing and compositions for ensemble bands, orchestras and dance groups he combines Afro-Cuban styles with European classical and improvised music. He is now working on an ambitious project for the Flamenco Biennale and November Music. The Biennale takes place starting next weekend for three weeks in various Dutch and Flemish towns. The project is called “Flamenco Criollo”.

“I am not a flamenco musician or flamenco connoisseur. It takes years to do justice to the depth of that music. What I do know a lot about is the music of Cuba, the place where European and African styles came together.”

He has been working on this project for at least two years working, because it is one of those many projects postponed due to the pandemic. That wasn't a bad time, it gave space for even more research, useful because Flamenco Criollo tells a complex story. It covers Persian music, the North African influences in Andalusia, the exchange between the port cities Cádiz and Havana, and the West African influence in Cuba. It's about so-called “cantos de ida y vuelta,” songs that go from Spain to the Americas and back again.

What were you thinking when the festival approached you for a project about flamenco?

“I thought it was a great idea when Ernestina van de Noort [director of Flamenco Biennale, ed.] asked me to look into the relationship between Cuban music and flamenco. But even though I lived in Spain for a few years, I've never really delved into flamenco. This was a great opportunity. I like having to find out and think about everything before I even hear the first notes.

“I was lucky that, just when I started this assignment, I had toured with Amir ElSaffar, the American-Iraqi trumpeter. The Persian melodies he uses in jazz sounded whole, very like Andalusian pre-flamenco music. The Moorish styles from before flamenco took shape in the nineteenth century. So I decided to concentrate on the journey of that melody. And especially the Hijaz scale”.

Ortiz turns on his electric piano to play it out, but changes his mind. He sings and hums a mystical melody line in the Hijaz scale, which occurs in Indian raga, in Arabic maqam, but also in Hebrew and Eastern European klezmer. And in flamenco, especially in the cante jondo, one of the most expressive singing styles.

And that melodic line came to Cuba?

“You can hear that in rumba. Rumba and flamenco were both musical styles of the lower class. Rumba originated in the ports of Havana and Matanzas. The ships that arrived there in the nineteenth century came mainly from Cádiz, the main port of Andalusia and famous for flamenco. Sometimes they were in that port for up to six months. What happens then? People go making music together in the bars, the restaurants, brothels and especially on the streets and on the quay.

“In the nineteenth century both flamenco and rumba have a fixed form. So a dock worker in Havana plays an Afro-Cuban rumba beat on wooden boxes and a dock worker from Cádiz then proceeds to sing in flamenco style. They jam until it clicks. Musical history is always about people. If people travel, meet each other, drink together, become acquainted, then they bring styles together. That's how it went with dance, you see the clapping and some dance steps flamenco in rumba.”

And vice versa? Came Afro-Cuban percussion, for example, back to Andalusia?

“Hmmm... that's a bit less easy to perceive, but you often hear an accent on the fourth beat. That's very African. You mainly hear a Cuban form in the flamenco style called guajiras. That is based on songs from the Cuban countryside.

The dominant Cuban music history focuses mainly on Spanish and West African influence. You don't hear much about the Arabic influence through flamenco. And in Spain the African influence is sometimes forgotten.

"Indeed. That is why research is so important. I studied, among other things, Manuel Torre, a flamenco genius. He was very popular in Andalusia around 1900, truly one of the greats. He always said that he tried to understand the 'black tribe' of flamenco. He often referred to the genre's Egyptian roots. But that is still not a generally accepted position."

How will this complex history play out on stage in 'Flamenco Criollo'?

“First of all: it is not a flamenco performance. It's a journey. I looked for musicians and instruments that represent the Arab-Andalusian pre-flamenco, flamenco itself and the Afro-Cuban side. I'm definitely not a purist. For example, we do not have a guitar, but an oud, its Arabic predecessor. And we also have singers and dancers from different traditions, such as the great dancer María Moreno and singer Ismael de la Rosa. They know so much more about flamenco, the research doesn't really stop."