Jazz Articles about Miguel Zenon

About Miguel Zenon

Album Review

The alto saxophone rose to jazz prominence in the 1940s, under the influence of Charlie Parker and the birth of bebop. Important players such as Art Pepper, Lee Konitz and Ornette Coleman took the horn in their own directions, crafting distinctive alto saxophone voices. Moving ahead to the new millennium, no alto saxophonist has entered the tradition with more style and panache than Miguel Zenon. His Alma Aldentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook (Marsalis Music, 2011), Tipico (Miel Music, 2017) and ...

Album Review

Misha Tsiganov: Painter Of Dreams

Read "Painter Of Dreams" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
August 21, 2024

A mainstay musician in the vibrant and exciting jazz scene of New York City, Russian-born pianist Misha Tsiganov presents his fifth Criss Cross album, Painter of Dreams, which features six original compositions and two familiar reimagined standards, with every piece but one running from between eight to eleven-minutes in length. The pianist expands his musical boundaries, implements new elements, augments the horn section and, with regard to his own playing, states that he was moved to include an “entirely acoustic ...

Album Review

Misha Tsiganov: Painter Of Dreams

Read "Painter Of Dreams" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
July 14, 2024

Like a fine wine, Russian-born and New York-based pianist Misha Tsiganov, seems to improve with age. His music continues to evolve and his creativity hits a high spot with Painter Of Dreams. He has appeared on countless albums over the years and has played with such musicians as Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Watson and Michael Brecker. His ability to shift tempos and mix meters in his compositions has always been notable. Recent work with the Romanian Radio Big Band has also ...

Album Review

Dan Weiss: Even Odds

Read "Even Odds" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 25, 2024

Drummer and composer Dan Weiss turns his experiments and percussion exercises into compositions on this trio recording Even Odds. In other words, he composes, not on a piano, but with his drum kit for the twenty tracks heard here. That fact may not be groundbreaking except that Weiss recorded those tracks and sent the music to alto saxophonist Miguel Zénon and pianist Matt Mitchell to contemplate before gathering in the studio to improvise in this overdubbed recording. Weiss' ...

Album Review

Dan Weiss: Even Odds

Read "Even Odds" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
March 20, 2024

To say that “It Is What It Is"--regarding drummer/composer Dan Weiss's feverish first track on the fervently episodic Even Odds--misses the whole point entirely. It could be anything. And within its spacious yet oddly claustrophobic three-and-a-half minutes, evolutions come and go in real time. And real time is a bitch if you cannot keep up. It is a wild statement but one that needs to be said, especially at the onset of music such as Even Odds. It ...

Album Review

Mehmet Ali Sanlikol: Turkish Hipster: Tales From Swing To Psychedelic

Read "Turkish Hipster: Tales From Swing To Psychedelic" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 8, 2023

Those who believe the term Turkish Hipster has to be an oxymoron should get to know composer/arranger/multi-instrumentalist Mehmet Ali Sanlikol, a Turk whose seventh album, subtitled “Tales from Swing to Psychedelic," is about as hip as can be. Sanlikol knows where is going but chooses to get there in his own special way, using every weapon in his musical arsenal to create vivid sound pictures whose jazz components rest solidly within a Middle Eastern framework that set them apart from ...

Live Review

Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo at Solar Myth

by Victor L. Schermer
August 28, 2023

Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo Ars Nova Workshop Solar Myth Philadelphia, PA August 23, 2023 This magnificent performance, by two of the finest Latin-based jazz musicians around today, blew the lid off a “myth" about a seemingly funky-grungy club called Solar Myth. The club's exotic name with its reference to the Sun Ra albums (Sun Ra Arkestra, The Solar Myth Approach, Vols 1 and 2, Actuel 4, recorded 1970-1971; released ...