Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo at Harlem Stage Gatehouse

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 Bolero, Vol. 2 (Miel Music, 2023) won the award in 2024. At a Saturday show at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse, presented free as part of the Carnegie Hall Citywide Series, the duo's charming repertoire of boleros from the Caribbean and elsewhere in Latin America proved as involving live as they have been on record.

Like the albums, the concert presented something distinctive: the transformation to intimate jazz duets of songs that don't belong to the jazz tradition. Once described as the quintessential Latin American romantic song of the 20th Century, the bolero is a Cuban-rooted romantic ballad whose lyrics often express themes of love and longing. Take the stricken lover of one of the famous boleros, "Besame Mucho," written by a Mexican teenager and recorded by The Beatles, among hundreds of other artists: "Dearest one, if you should leave me/Then each little dream will take wings/And my life would be through."

The jazz duets ramp down the melodrama of the bolero, as heard in performances by the likes of Puerto Rican singer Gilberto Santa Rosa, whose concerts can fill Madison Square Garden in New York. But Zenon—a Puerto Rican himself—channels some of the passion of a pained bolero into expressive alto sax lines that can tug at the heart. In "En La Oscuridad," made famous by Puerto Rican legend Tito Rodriguez, Zenon's spiraling, plaintive lines were both emotive and elegant.

The altoist has a perfect foil in the playing of Luis Perdomo. The career of the Venezuelan-born pianist, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1993, spans both mainstream jazz and Latin jazz collaborations with the likes of Ralph Irizarry , Ray Barretto, and Ignacio Berroa. Zenon may be Perdomo's most frequent collaborator; the two have played together on at least a dozen albums over the past 25 years.

Perdomo's sometimes flamboyant style is a perfect match to this impassioned material. Like the great contemporary Cuban jazz pianists, Perdomo integrates the rhythmic verve of Latin music into his playing. And like Ignacio Berroa, the Cuban piano master, Perdomo is able to create massive, castle-like solos that move from one ambitious idea to another, yet somehow never falter or topple.

A musical empathy born of years and albums together was never more evident than when Zenon and Perdomo traded fours. With close attention to one another, they spontaneously steered the songs in various directions—quieter and louder, stopped time and more aggressively rhythmic. It was dazzling but never mere showing off. The song—the wistful bolero—was always at the center of the music.

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