Aruan Ortiz, "the latest Cuban wunderkind to arrive in the United States" (BET Jazz), hit the ground running when he came on the American jazz scene in 2003. a former classically trained violist and pianist, this Santiago de Cuba native's sound is as marked by the influence of the contemporary classical composers such as Schoenberg, Ravel, and Copland as by traditional Afro Cuban sounds and jazz greats Bud Powell, Art Tatum, and Thelonious Monk. Ballet music but all Cuban flavored jazz.