Miguel Zenon builds a bridge from his Puerto Rican soul to the world

 

Pianist Luis Perdomo and saxophonist Miguel Zenon shared an intimate experience of the deepest feelings and highest art. All photos by Jim Kreul courtesy Arts + Lit Lab

MADISON JAZZ FESTIVAL Review, Vol. 2

Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo

Arts + Literature Lab, June 13

As a critic, it is far from my wont to walk away from a concert with the utterance that tripped forth from my lips after a duet performance last week by alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon and pianist Louis Perdomo. But I said it, “I think I just died and went to heaven,” the hoary cliché clunking about shamelessly.

And therein lies the rub, I’ve concluded. You see, I really was experiencing something deliriously pleasurable during this concert. No question, Miguel Zenon, a Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow, is a monumental artist. He has emerged in recent years exploring with ardent, rigorous intelligence and reflection the cultural and historical legacy of his native Puerto Rico and Latin America in music and song. His 2014 album Identities are Changeable won numerous awards including this writer’s best jazz album of the year, for its exploration of the permeable ways that Puerto Rican and other Latinx New Yorkers see themselves. As I commented in my Culture Currents, it explores the “increasingly bifurcated nature of racial and national identity in America, typified no more strikingly than in our Puerto Rican culture.” Zenon interviewed and recorded numerous people in New York City and Puerto Rico and their testimony about fluidity and duality of identity rings fresh and true. “I think more people are realizing that you can be more than one cultural self at the same time,” comments Juan Flores.

And last year’s Zenon’s Musicas de las Americas probed with fascinating depth the innermost byways of Pan-American culture, especially focusing on the consequences of colonization.

By contrast, the album performed at this month’s Madison Jazz Festival, El Arte Del Bolero, seems less ambitious but in the experience proved no less consequential, at least emotionally, psychologically, and perhaps spiritually. It’s an album of duets by arguably Zenon’s closest collaborator, pianist Louis Perdomo, and comprises songs traversing their lifetimes, “songs from the times of our parents and grandparents… As essential to our development as the music of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, or Thelonious Monk, but perhaps even more familiar,” Zenon explains in the liner. “When we play these songs, we can hear the lyrics in the backs of our minds – something that provides a very deep connection, one that is hard to replicate in any other situation. It is beyond familiar. These songs are part of us.”

The Arts + Literature Lab in Madison, where Zenon and Perdomo performed, is a multi-purpose art gallery/arts and literature workshop/concert space.

The effect, in a jazz sense, manifested the ease of musical quotation as natural as breathing for them, and best exemplified historically by tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon.

So, if the songs seem simple compared to modern jazz that’s only a superficial quality. The musicians brought a lifetime of listening and music-loving to these, as elemental as their birthrights. The sheer beauty and ardent passion they infused them with captivated us. Many of these songs compared to the finest Tin Pan Alley melodies and one recalled “The Shadow of your Smile.”

Lyricism rarely gets much finer. That and the lack of drums lent an intimacy comparable to a hand laid in your own, or arms embracing, even a kiss. Yet for all the tenderness, the musicians filled their sweet cups with the protein of creative jazz. The mind was lit as much as the heart in song after song, which were mostly big hits in Latin America in their day.

Also, a dialectical power hovered that is almost excruciating, as exemplified by “La Vida Es Un Sueno,” written by Arsenio Rodriguez.

The title translates as “Life is a dream,” but that phrase is deceptive, snuggling up to bucolic notions. In a press release, Zenon explains that the closing lyrics of the song convey his sentiment as well as anything:

La realidad es nacer y morir
por qué llenarnos de tanta ansiedad
todo no es más que un eterno sufrir
y el mundo está hecho de infelicidad.

por qué llenarnos de tanta ansiedad
todo no es más que un eterno sufrir
y el mundo está hecho de infelicidad.

That translates into English as:

The reality is to be born and die
because filling us with so much anxiety.

everything is nothing more than an eternal suffering
and the world is made of unhappiness.

That, and the rest of the lyric, may be too bitter a cup to swallow for many comfortable gringos. But slavery, racism and colonialism have normalized that reality for countless Latinos, as well as African-Americans. And here Zenon’s horn let loose with utterly anguished moans, remembrance of deep-scared experience.

So, Zenon and Perdomo hardly diminish the pang of Rodriguez’s sentiments, but their playing proved as artful an anodyne as one could hope for, a salve to the suffering soul and, Lord knows, we all suffer, thus the universality of the music, even as it enlightened us.

Zenon possesses an alto sax tone all his own, though one can imagine a blend of tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, the latter lending a dryness to the former’s “sweet rain.” His inventiveness seems as inexorable as a waterfall.

And pianist Perdomo is as harmonically blessed as any pianist while capable of rhapsodic and sensual skimmings of the skin, with his classical training.

As for me, I had recently recovered from Covid positivity yet was still struggling with the lingering Covid fog, which affects one’s mood, lucidity, energy, and psyche. Yet memory of the music remains vivid. Indeed, El Arte del Bolero was conceived and first performed during the pandemic and that experience, along with those embedded in the composers’ songs, fueled the profound melancholy permeating these exquisite, sometimes soul-wracking utterances. So I wrestled with the strength of these emotions as I bathed in them, awash in the complexity of their poignant and plangent textures. I thank higher powers for the music’s all-too-human qualities, even as it buzzed my brain in the stimulating setting of The Arts + Literature Laboratory’s art gallery/concert space.

El Arte Del Bolero will stay with me like a tattoo on my soul, and I’ve never been happier to be so “defaced.” Indeed, I’m facing the sun with no fear of burning, even if the pain can be all too real.

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  1. Arsenio Rodriguez, “La Vida Es Un Sueño,” https://www.cancioneros.com/lyrics/song/29825/la-vida-es-un-sueno-arsenio-rodriguez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Milwaukee’s premiere trumpeter-composer Russ Johnson to play Chicago Jazz Festival September 2

  • Trumpeter-bandleader Russ Johnson. Courtesy Chicago Reader
  • Let’s give it up for Milwaukee trumpeter (Shorewood resident) Russ Johnson, who may be the finest jazz trumpeter living in the upper Midwest. He will be leading a quartet at Chicago Jazz Festival on at 1:50 p.m., Saturday, September 2 at the Von Freeman Pavilion, named for legendary Chicago saxophonist.
  • You can catch Russ in town regularly, as he plays most Tuesday evenings in the Dave Bayles Trio at the uptown or Tavern, at the corner of Humboldt and center Street, in Riverwest.
  • The Russ Johnson Quartet will do a warm-up for the Chicago fest at The Sugar Maple, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27 in Bay View. The quartet includes Johnson, violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Ethan Philion and drummer Tim Daisy.
  • Mark Feldman. Courtesy Soapbox Gallery
  • Feldman is a vastly experienced musician as a symphony orchestra player and has played with country stars, and a wide array of jazz and avant-garde musicians. including recording with Michael Brecker, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, and Chris Potter.
  • Though I haven’t heard Philion, he’s notable as the leader of a new Sunnyside recording Meditations on Mingus, leading a ten-piece band in a sequence of substantial Charles Mingus compositions. Johnson is a trumpeter on that recording,
  • Johnson says his festival quartet is also recording this fall, and that a prominent European label has already expressed interest.
  • Don’t miss the quartet in Milwaukee, if you can’t make it for the big Chicago event.
  • The Chicago Jazz Festival, sponsored by the city and others, is still a free event, though you need tickets to some events.
  • At bottom is one more recommendation for the fest, and a link to the fest schedule, ticketing and website.
  • (FWIW, here’s my review of Johnson’s 2014 album Meeting Point) :

    Trumpeter Russ Johnson opens new vistas in jazz conversation

  • September 2 Chicago Jazz Festival 
  • Von Freeman Pavilion (North Promenade)
  • 11:30am-12:25pm – Regina Harris Baiocchi (Jazz Institute of Chicago’s New Works, Fresh Voices)
  • 12:40-1:35pm – Arman Sangalang Quartet
  • 1:50-2:45pm – Russ Johnson Quartet
  • 3:00-4:00pm  – Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days

Here’s a YouTube of a set of the quartet, recorded live in March:

  • Milwaukee trumpeter Russ Johnson at the Uptowner Tavern with the Dave Bayles Trio (above and below) Photos by Kevin Lynch
  • Another recommendation for the Chicago Jazz Festival is the alto saxophonist-composer Miguel Zenon who’s riding his new superb recording Musica De Las Americas.
  • He performs at 8 p.m. in Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph St., on Sunday, September 3.
  • Miguel Zenon. Courtesy Wikipedia
  • The album further deepens his creative resourcing of his Puerto Rican music roots, this time with all originals rather than doing historic reclamation of underexposed Puerto Rican composers as he’s done several times in recent years.
  • His work amounts to a profound excavation and bridging of the Latin connection in music of the Americas.
  • Plus, Zenon has as dynamically charged and cohesive a quartet, including Luis Perdomo one of my favorite pianists, as you’ll hear in jazz. Musica De Las Americas is augmented by the percussion and vocal quartet Los Pleneros De La Cresta.
  • Zenon’s new music is pensive, probing, lyrical and exhilarating, by turns. It raises and musically waves a rippling flag of identity while conveying that identity’s universality as a musical language.
  • Here’s a link to the festival info: Chicago Jazz Festival 2022

 

Here’s the results of an International Critics Music Poll, with Kevernacular’s contribution

Chicago Trumpeter Amir ElSaffar and his Rivers of Sound Orchestra, pictured above, produced my choice for jazz album of the year. Photo by Tom Beetz. 

Yes, but what were the best of the year, and what does all that add up to?

Here’s one man’s opinion.*

I participated in the 14th Annual International Critics Poll of El Intruso, the Spanish publication dedicated to jazz, experimental and creative music. I have included the results of the NPR critics poll here in recent years. But for a change of perspective, it’s interesting to see what critics from all around the world come up with, as the best of the year (see entire international poll link at bottom).

Special mention: The documentary film Summer of Soul, directed by The Roots drummer Questlove, captures the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which reportedly drew 300,000, but got little fanfare, elsewhere. This provided the best new film soundtrack. Nina Simone, B.B. King, the 5th Dimension, the Staple Singers, and more. Here’s info on it  https://pitchfork.com/news/summer-of-soul-soundtrack-release-announced/ 

The international poll does not ask for top 10 album lists, I will list my choices of best albums of the year for the NPR poll:

Best Jazz Albums for 2021 NPR Critics Poll

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1. Amir ElSaffar Rivers of Sound OrchestraThe Other Side (Out Note) This was the surprise of the year. I didn’t expect ElSaffar do a big band and a very unconventional pan-cultural creature. But this is actually their second recording and a rare symbiosis emerges, beautifully conceived and executed. Yet one must set aside preconceptions of what a jazz orchestra should sound like. He’s a Chicagoan but has deeply investigated his Iranian roots and allowed the bitonal modalities to flourish like an exotic garden.

2. Charles Lloyd and the MarvelsTone Poem (Blue Note) Tenor sax guru Lloyd and his stylistically elastic quintet, with simpatico guitar innovator Bill Frisell, lays his ineffable touch on Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, Leonard Cohen and Gabor Zsabo, a concoction enfolded with a few worthy originals.

3.. Anthony Braxton2 Comp (Zim) 2017 (firehouse) _- One of the true geniuses and intrepid and prolific visionaries of the music called jazz or Black music (or what Braxton calls “Language Music” or “Holistic Modeling Musics”) surfaces again with a stimulating 12 hours of original music packed into a single Blue-Ray disc. Rediscover Braxton’s uncannily self-generated world of music, or take the plunge — into this transformative experience of creative possibility.

4. Johannes WallmannElegy for Undiscovered Species (Shifting Paradigm) — Another masterful statement from the Madison-based pianist-composer, who shows how deftly he extends his compositional and conceptual palette to a chamber string orchestra. He spotlights two brilliant soloists for his jazz quintet with strings — Dayna Stevens, a limpidly inventive saxophonist whose plangent tone and superb phrasing almost mystically invoke Stan Getz. He also plays luminous EWI (electronic wind instrument). And trumpeter Ingrid Jensen has developed a deeply personal lyrical voice on her horn. Wallmann’s taut yet supple string writing remains always integral to the force of his expressive purpose, even in the surging romanticism of “Longing.” This elegy stirs the imagination (what species?) while deeply commenting on our global environmental malaise.

5. Lionel LouekeClose your Eyes (Sounderscore) Wow, what a brilliant guitarist he’s become, extending the modern, harmonically weighty tradition from Wes Montgomery. He has dazzling rhythmic acumen and plays with tension like a master basketball dribbler. This was his first full-album statement “in the tradition” as the compulsive original Braxton once did, and almost all his takes are meaty and revelatory. He got a bit too clever by crunching the closer, Trane’s “Naima,” which lost the tune’s arching, iridescent lyricism.

6. Marcin Wasilewski Trio — en Attendant — (ECM) With this sad news this year of Chick Corea’s passing, and of Keith Jarrett’s apparently disabling stroke, Marcin Wasilewski joins the conversation as a darkhorse for “greatest living (and active) jazz pianist, or perhaps “best jazz piano trio.” Here’s my review of this recording:

Is this the best? Marcin Wasilewski’s cutting-edge piano trio forges ahead

7. Frank Kimbrough –  Ancestors (Sunnyside) Another great recent loss among jazz pianists, Kimbrough enhanced the Maria Schneider’s Orchestra expansively harmonic sound paintings, and really stepped out in recent years with his profoundly delicious Monk’s Dreams box set, and a few marvelous recordings including this one, gracefully asserting his place as successor to his artistic ancestors.

GREAT NEW VIBES SECTION:

8. Simon Moullier TrioCountdown ((Fresh Sound New Talent) A virtuoso vibraphonist new to me dazzled in this deftly imaginative romp through a brilliant selection of modern standards (from Monk and Mingus to Kern and Porter, etc.). His monster chops stay pretty on course to compositional expression and illumination rather than detouring into mere showiness.

9. Joel Ross – Who Are You? (Blue Note) A vibrant (pun intended) quintet session led by vibraphonist Joel Ross, and certainly the best album of largely original music by a vibist I’ve heard in a number of years. It’s modern, straight-ahead jazz which shows how elastic the modern mainstream of the music form can get.

(See also honorable mention album “Marimba Maverick” by Mike Neumeyer,)

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10.. Noah Haidu – Slowly: Song for Keith Jarrett (Sunnyside) An eloquent and moving tribute to Jarrett, One of the most esteemed and influential pianists of his generation, and in light of the stroke which may have permanently ended Jarrett’s performing and recording career. Pianist Haidu has the chops, sensitivity and gravitas to pull this tribute off.

Honorable Mention: Miguel Zenon — Law Years: The Music of Ornette Coleman (Bandcamp), Stephanie Niles – I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag – The White Flag (Sunnyside)?  Roberto Magris & Eric Hochberg – Shuffling Ivories (JMood), Jamie Breiwick The Jewel (Live at the Dead Poet) (Ropeadope), Silent Room (Enzo Carniel and Filipo Vignato) – Aria (Menace), Craig Taborn – Shadow Plays (ECM), Mike Neumeyer – Marimba Maverick (Voirimba), Marc Cary — Life Lessons (Sessionheads United) Craig Taborn – Shadow Plays (ECM)

Best Historical Albums

John ColtraneA Love Supreme: Live in Seattle (Impulse)

Bill Evans — Behind the Dikes (Elemental)

Roy BrooksUnderstanding (Reel to Real)

 

Best Latin Jazz Album

Miguel Zenon and Luis PerdomoEl arte Del Bolero

Best Jazz Vocal Album  

Mary LaRoseOut Here (Little i Music)

 

Best Debut Album

Kazemde GeorgeI Insist (Greenleaf)

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Kevernacular’s ballot for El Intruso – 14th Annual International Critics Poll ballot for 2021 (see link to the poll below)

musician of the year – Miguel Zenon, Amir ElSaffar

newcomer musician – Kazemde George (saxophone)

group of the year –  Charles Lloyd & The Marvels, Emile Parisien Sextet

newcomer group – Silent Room (Enzo Carniel/Filippo Vignato duo)

album of the year — Amir ElSaffar Rivers of Sound OrchestraThe Other Side (Out Note); Charles Lloyd and the MarvelsTone Poem, Emile ParisienLouise (ACT); Lionel LouekeClose Your Eyes (Sounderscore)

composer – Amir ElSaffar, Anthony Braxton, Johannes Wallmann

drums – Brian Blade, Joe Chambers, Nasheet Waits

acoustic bass – Buster Williams, Christian McBride, Reuben Rogers

electric bass – Steve Swallow

guitar – Lionel Loueke, Mary Halvorsen, Miles Ozaki

piano – Chick Corea, Vijay Iyer, Marcin Wasilewski

keyboard/synthesizer/organ – Lonnie Smith

tenor saxophone – Charles Lloyd, Chris Potter, Joe Lovano

alto saxophone – Miguel Zenon, Jim Snidero, Kenny Garrett

baritone saxophone – Gary Smulyan

soprano saxophone – Emile Parisien, Isaiah Collier

trumpet/Cornet – Wadada Leo Smith, Brian Lynch, Dave Douglas

clarinet/bass clarinet – Anat Cohen, Jeff Lederer

trombone – Gianluca Petrella, Filippo Vignato

flute – Nicole Mitchell

violin/Viola

cello – Hank Roberts

vibraphone – Simon Moullier, Joel Ross, Mike Neumeyer

electronics — Marc Cary

other instruments

female vocals – Cecile McLorin Salvant, Stephanie Niles, Mary LaRose

male vocals – Kurt Elling

label of the year — Sunnyside

Here’s a link to the El Intruso International Critics Poll:

Encuesta 2021 – Periodistas Internacionales

 

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  • Alas, I didn’t hear but one cut of Song for Billie Holiday by Wada Leo Smith, Vijay Iyer and Jack DeJohnnette, which I regret, and most likely a high top-tenner.

Kevin Lynch, The Shepherd Express, Culture Currents (Vernaculars Speak), nodepression.com

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