“This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom. And equality.” As poet Mtume Gant makes the statement the crunch and whirl of reeds and rhythm section provide a suitable sonic reinforcement to the sentiment, creating an atmosphere of questioning disruption that underlines the intent of pianist-composer-bandleader Aruan Ortiz.

The 50 year-old Cuban, who has built a hugely impressive body of work for labels like Intakt in the past decade, has taken on a subject of great magnitude – Dr. Martin Luther King’s 'I Have A Dream' speech, a seminal text, delivered 60 years ago, that has also inspired work by everybody from Oliver Nelson to Nathan Davis to Denys Baptiste. Ortiz has put a very personal spin on the source material, by evoking the hard edge of reality that shattered and continues to shatter King’s idealism, and the fiery trilling of Don Byron’s clarinet, stark slashing of Yves Dhar and Lester St. Louis’s cellos and funky somersaults of Pheeroan akLaff’s drums all cohere into an ensemble sound that implies a BLM modern day resistance as much as it does any 1950s Civil Rights righteousness.

Certainly the way Ortiz, his harmony and rhythm drawn from both avant-garde and Latin dance vocabulary, stokes the fire to the mighty climax of ‘Turning The Other Cheek No More’ puts in mind the absolute strength that freedom fighters of all hues have drawn from this quintessential history. The work of the two cellos, which lends to the group a tough, muscular sound that can also be sinewy and fragile, is crucial here but this is very much an ensemble triumph, perhaps in line with the community action King so passionately advocated. The pastor did indeed think of the many rather than the few and the paradox referred to in the title could well be that he had to meet his death as he sought a better life for all Americans, black and white.