BRATTLEBORO-The Vermont Jazz Center is honored to present Miguel Zenón in concert with his long-standing quartet on Saturday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m.
The Grammy Award-winning saxophonist will appear with Luís Perdomo on piano, Matt Penman on bass, and Henry Cole on drums. With the exception of Penman, this group has been together for more than 25 years.
In an advertising profile for music instrument manufacturer and supplier D’Addario, Zenón has discussed the positive attributes of working with the same people for so many years, saying this quartet is “always there, always game.”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m working on, the level of difficulty, the level of commitment — they’re always there. It’s not necessarily the norm these days, because the industry pushes us to present ‘all-star’ bands. It’s good to have a vehicle you can trust and conceptualize for — it’s been a blessing.”
The music played by this band is consequential, heady, and heartfelt. Zenón is known for creating projects that reflect his love for the music, culture, and people of his native Puerto Rico.
In an interview with the CODA podcast (which explores the arts of Puerto Rico), he stated: “I have a close relationship with Puerto Rico — it is my principal inspiration and serves as a bridge to understanding and portraying my true self.”
Nonetheless, Zenón is quick to point out that his varied discography, although greatly informed by his knowledge of Latin music, is broad.
In a profile of jazz artists profiled on the Grammy Awards’ website, he said: “I consider myself a jazz musician who happens to be from Latin America.” His influences stem from the language invented by Charlie Parker (bebop) and the post-bebop stylings of John Coltrane (especially the albums Crescent and A Love Supreme). They are also strongly affected by his fascination with complex rhythms.
Before his ascension as a leader, Zenón was mentored by the legendary Panamanian pianist and composer Danilo Pérez. He then went on to record and study with another of his mentors, David Sánchez.
From 2004 to 2019, Zenón was a founding member of the eight-piece SFJAZZ Collective, with whom he recorded the music of Chick Corea, Stevie Wonder, Thelonious Monk and others, arranging a healthy selection of their epic charts.
In the early 2000s, he performed and recorded with percussionist Ray Barretto, bassist Charlie Haden, the Mingus Big Band, and many others, demonstrating the extreme breadth of his abilities and interests.
Zenón’s discography as a leader began in 2002 with the prescient recording Looking Forward, and then he embraced deep dives into such topics as Law Years: The Music of Ornette Coleman, Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook, and two volumes of El Arte del Bolero. (Volume 2 won him and pianist Luís Perdomo a Best Latin Jazz Grammy in 2024.)
To date, Zenón has recorded 18 commercially available recordings as a leader. He has established himself as an artist who cuts his own path and, in doing so, has earned great critical acclaim.
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After graduating high school, Zenón had to choose between a scholarship to Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (in Puerto Rico) to study engineering or the Berklee College of Music in Boston to study music.
Music won out, but his love for math, engineering, and disciplined study have served him well, and these focuses continue to inform the way he embarks on new creative endeavors.
In the interview with D’Addario, Zenón discussed his methodology: “Through all the different projects that I’ve made, what I really enjoyed is this idea of focusing on one project or one source of information, be it something that has to do with Puerto Rico, or something else that interests me[...]. That research part, for me, is as important as writing the music.”
Zenón’s curiosity, discipline, and passion have led to an associate professorship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also affiliated with Columbia University, where he is involved with the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. In 2008, Zenón received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the “genius grant.”
The MacArthur website states that Zenón was granted the Award “for expanding the boundaries of Latin and jazz music through his elegant and innovative musical collages. As both a saxophonist and a composer, Zenón demonstrates an astonishing mastery of old and new jazz idioms, from Afro-Caribbean and Latin American rhythmical concepts to free and avant-garde jazz.”
In 2022, he received an honorary doctorate from La Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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What makes Zenón’s music so important, so interesting, and so listenable?
Three attributes are consistent throughout his body of work: the intentional quality of his sound, his unfathomable attention to rhythmic detail, and his heart connection to the music and to the community.
Zenón is a person who “pays it forward,” using his involvement with music as a direct way to benefit his chosen communities and his audience.
Eunice Mabel Santana, host of the CODA podcast, described Zenón’s visit to her village in Puerto Rico several years earlier as a life-changing experience. She is not alone. In 2011 Zenón used the money he received from the MacArthur fellowship to launch Caravana Cultural, a jazz awareness program he designed to eventually visit all 78 municipalities of Puerto Rico.
In a conversation with Melissa Aldana, a saxophonist from Chile, Zenón stated, “I wanted to go to places where people wouldn’t normally have access to this kind of music... to eliminate the ’taboos’ around who should listen to jazz.”
Thus, Caravana’s programming pays tribute to major figures from the jazz canon like Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and Keith Jarrett. The free day-long events include pre-concert educational sessions, a performance with Zenón’s quartet, and the on-stage inclusion of area youth musicians.
Other indications of his community involvement include Zenón’s participation in a U.S. State Department Jazz Ambassadors tour to West Africa, his continued work with the music school of his youth, and a recent commission by SFJAZZ.
For that program, he conducted more than 50 in-depth interviews with immigrants from the San Francisco area, research that served to inspire the compositions he created for his recording the Golden City suite.
He achieved his goal of bringing awareness to the tremendous impact that the immigrant communities have added to the rich culture of the Bay Area. The resultant recording was nominated for a 2025 Grammy award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble.
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Come listen to the Miguel Zenón Quartet and find out why Zenón told Dr. Jazz that “the one piece of advice that I tell myself every day is to stay hungry, stay focused, stay passionate, and be ready. Because when that door opens, you want to be at your best.”
Zenón will fulfill this musical promise at the Vermont Jazz Center.
For those unable to attend in person, check out the VJC’s livestream at vtjazz.org. Thanks to sponsorship engagement, VJC operates using a subsidized ticket system, which lowers the cost per ticket to $25 even though the value per seat is more than double that amount. Admission is $25 general admission (sliding scale).
Tickets can be reserved online at vtjazz.org, or by phone at 802-254-9088, ext. 1. For those needing mobility access, make arrangements by emailing or calling to schedule a time for one of our staff to meet your party.
Eugene Uman is director of the Vermont Jazz Center. The Commons’ Deeper Dive column gives artists, arts organizations, and other nonprofits elbow room to write in first person and be unabashedly opinionated, passionate, and analytical about their own creative work and events.
This Arts column was submitted to The Commons.