Miguel Zenón
Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
Listening to the superb “El Arte Del Bolero, Volume Two,” I feel that these are two masters who, while recalling their various ancestries, are talking to me.
The saxophonist has the slithery facility of a bebopper, but I also hear something of the forthright stance of Coltrane in his playing, despite the rhythmic complexity of his writing — and his distinctively varied use of his Puerto Rican background.
Two pianoless quartets + two restless leaders = some of the best music of the last few years.
So Miguel Zenón, who on saxophone has the facility of a bebopper, which he uses discreetly, is here a singer as well as an instrumentalist.
Miguel Zenón’s extraordinary writing for strings and saxophone makes use of ever-changing textures generated out of jazz, Puerto Rican folk, and classical music.
Jazz groups of eight to eleven often make fascinating and unusual music, but they rarely survive.
The members of the Collective seem to have an understanding that their job is to make music that reflects a group identity as well as their individual personalities.
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