Jazz Articles about Miguel Zenon

About Miguel Zenon

Live Review

Miguel Zenon Quartet at Sam First

by Hobart Taylor
June 3, 2026

Miguel Zenon Quartet Sam First Los Angeles, CA May 29, 2026 Miguel Zenon and his compadres modus operandi was to start tunes in the middle, drive past a climax and find a new revelatory center to conclude. It's as if the tunes were soaring overhead and the band reached up to snatch them from the air midflight. Wonderous. For folks in need of a category, I suppose you could say something silly like ...

Radio & Podcasts

Miguel Zenón: Vanguardia Subterránea And The Sound Of Sanctuary

by Lawrence Peryer
November 29, 2025

Today, we're putting The Tonearm's needle on saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón.A MacArthur Fellow, Guggenheim recipient, and Grammy winner, Miguel has spent over two decades creating music that connects jazz tradition with Puerto Rican rhythms and modern composition.He's here to talk about his latest release, Vanguardia Subterránea: Live at The Village Vanguard (Miel Music), his quartet's first live album, captured at the Village Vanguard with musicians he's played with for twenty years. Miguel and I first ...

Radio & Podcasts

Miguel Zenón, Max Nagl, Vincent Ségal, Stéphane Kerecki & More

by Ludovico Granvassu
September 26, 2025

A playlist of handpicked gems from both sides of the Atlantic.Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Max Nagl “Shoklad" Phasolny (Rude Noises) 0:16 Host talks 4:04 Vincent Ségal, Stéphane Kerecki “L'échappée" Ponticello (Fuga Libera) 5:16 Host talks 7:47 Naïssam Jalal feat. Sylvain Rifflet “Souffle #3" Souffles (Les couleurs du son) 9:20 Luke Stewart's Silt Remembrance Ensemble “Silt Remembrance" The Order (Cuneiform) 13:14 Jeff Walton “Easy Tease" Pack Animals ...

Album Review

Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterránea: Live at The Village Vanguard

Read "Vanguardia Subterránea: Live at The Village Vanguard" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 29, 2025

The perfect sports analogy for saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón might just be baseball legend Roberto Clemente. Both were born in Puerto Rico, and both are revered as masters of their respective crafts. Clemente was a perennial All-Star, a World Series MVP, a Gold Glove winner and a National League batting champion. Zenón, for his part, has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur “genius" grant and a Doris Duke Artist Award. He is frequently recognized as alto saxophonist ...

Album Review

Miguel Zenon: Vanguardia Subterránea: Live at The Village Vanguard

Read "Vanguardia Subterránea: Live at The Village Vanguard" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
August 18, 2025

Suffused with shadows as is the cover photo of Vanguardia Subterranea, it is a perfectly appropriate match for the title of the Miguel Zenon Quartet's first live album. Released in celebration of the ensemble's 20th anniversary, both the image and the music favorably hearken to the displays of healthy improvisational jazz behind graphic designs for vintage albums on the Blue Note and Prestige labels in the 1950s and 1960s. Recorded over two nights in September of 2024 at ...

Live Review

Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo at Harlem Stage Gatehouse

by Paul Reynolds
May 9, 2025

Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo Harlem Stage Gatehouse Carnegie Hall Citywide New York, NY May 3, 2025 The duets between alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon and pianist Luis Perdomo are among the most affecting jazz collaborations of recent years, and the most acclaimed. The first of the duo albums they've recorded together, El Arte Del Bolero (Miel Music, 2021) was nominated for Best Latin Jazz Album Grammy in 2022, and the second, El Arte Del ...

Album Review

Miguel Zenón: Golden City

Read "Golden City" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
November 5, 2024

La musica contenuta in questo album trae spunto da una commissione ricevuta da Miguel Zenón per la composizione di una suite basata sulla storia di San Francisco e della Bay Area, evidenziando in particolare i contributi offerti da parte delle comunità giapponese, cinese, messicana e, ovviamente, afroamericana. Ne è nata così questa Golden City, presentata in anteprima al San Francisco Jazz Center nel 2022 e incisa poi a fine novembre dell'anno seguente. Per l'occasione Zenón (portoricano, lo ricordiamo) ...