Ruiz’s lesson in Latin music is enlightening

At the start of his performance Sunday at Tamayo Restaurant in East Los Angeles, pianist Otmaro Ruiz made a simple but vitally insightful statement. “Latin music,” he said, “is everything between Tijuana and the tip of South America. And it’s not all Tito Puente.”

Ruiz meant no disrespect for the great bandleader, but he was determined to establish a receptive environment for a program of music reaching from the U.S. to Cuba to Venezuela, Brazil and beyond. And the most remarkable aspect of the program -- the first jazz event in the 2002-03 Chamber Music in Historic Sites season -- was the enthusiastic manner in which the overflow crowd responded to the sometimes thorny works presented by his quartet.

The Venezuela-born Ruiz offered, with one or two exceptions, a program of originals, including several new pieces. Styles included the onda nueva of his own country, transforming the original style’s 6/8 rhythm to a brisk jazz groove, a recasting of the Bahian rhythms in a number by Egberto Gismonti, the tropical sounds of Ruiz’s “Tobago Road” and a stirring piece in which the rhythm gradually accelerated into a daunting up-tempo.

The challenges of this array of sounds and rhythms were superbly handled by Ruiz, saxophonist-flutist Gary Meek, drummer Aaron Serfaty and bassist John Belzaguy. Further enhancing the afternoon concert, the music was presented in the hacienda-style setting of Tamayo, surrounded by the colorful paintings of the restaurant’s famous namesake. By the time the program concluded, Ruiz had demonstrated, in thoroughly entertaining fashion, the accuracy of his belief in the far-reaching panorama of Latin music in general, and Latin jazz in particular.