28th February 2012: It’s Official: Aruan Ortiz & Michael Janisch Quintet feat. Greg Osby ‘BANNED IN LONDON’ releases OCT. 29, 2012
Mark your music calendars for the debut recording from one of the world’s premier contemporary ensembles.
‘Banned in London’
Live at the London Jazz Festival
Aruán Ortiz & Michael Janisch Quintet
featuring Greg Osby
OFFICIAL Release date: OCT. 29, 2012
In all good record shops worldwide and digitally on over 50 online retailers!
Featuring:
Aruán Ortiz, Piano
Greg Osby, Alto Saxophone
Raynald Colom, Trumpet
Michael Janisch, Acoustic Bass
Rudy Royston, Drums
Recorded live across three hours, featuring compositions by the leaders as well as arrangements by the ensemble. The music was recorded at the end of their inaugural European tour in the fall of 2011. To hear some sneak previews, visit the MUSIC page on their brand new website.
“A heavyweight collection of players…the highlight and most interesting concert of the [Cork] Jazz Festival”
The Irish Times
“virtuosic solos with unrelenting grooves on exciting, through-composed, genre-hopping melodies” Time Out, London
__________________________________________
The 
Aruán Ortiz & Michael Janisch Quintet is a new international musical collaboration of the highest order. Both leaders have performed at the forefront of contemporary jazz & improvised music during the last decade with some of the world’s greatest artists, such as Joe Lovano, Lee Konitz, Wallace Roney, and Terry Lyne Carrington. Since their formative years at the renowned Berklee College of Music (where in 2001 they met and formed an immediate music chemistry), they have maintained close musical ties resulting in an artistic growth that has culminated in the formation of this unique and progressive ensemble. Their music spans the breadth of contemporary sounds while drawing firmly and authentically from jazz’s rich tradition. These are tenets that both Janisch and Ortiz hold as the focal point of their musicianship.
For their new quintet, they have assembled one of the most exciting casts of recent years, calling on one of the jazz world’s most prominent and pioneering artists, saxophonist and featured special guest Greg Osby, first-call NYC resident drummer Rudy Royston (Bill Frisell, Ravi Coltrane) and perennial award winning Spanish Trumpeter Raynald Colom (Perico Sambeat, Robin Eubanks). As a unit, they perform their critically acclaimed original music alongside reinterpretations from jazz’s great lexicon, using either template as a means for passionate sonic exploration.
2011 saw the inaugural tour of the AO & MJ Quintet, where they performed for over two weeks across Ireland, France, Spain, and the UK to hugely receptive crowds. The synergy amongst the quintets members compounded with the overwhelmingly positive response from audiences has resulted in a unified effort by Janisch and Ortiz to keep the group together, even though each member is hugely in demand as leaders, sidemen, and educators. Luckily, there is a strong impetus for further music tours and development as a result of the live recording that took place during the groups sold out London Jazz Festival appearance at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in November of 2011. Over three hours of high octane music was recorded by the band and will be released later in 2012 as the groups debut album. Titled ‘Banned in London,’ the group has been captured live performing an onslaught of soundscapes, moods, and explorations, which will prove that this is not some throw-together super group, but a potent mixture of world class improvising musicians with a sincere empathy for creating improvised music of the now.