Evento
FRIDAY 12 NOVEMBER, 19H30
Miguel
Zenón Quartet
Miguel Zenón saxofone
alto
Luis Perdomo piano
Hans Glawischnig contrabaixo
Henry Cole bateria
To complete a long and demanding cycle of thirty years
in music and to accomplish in the end of it a status of respectability,
sustained by principles of integrity, coherence and good-faith applied to an
artform, is much more difficult than we usually think, almost chimerical.
Miguel Zenón, despite the aesthetical judgement one may articulate about his
style, is a respectable musician, as is the festival where he performed for the
first time in the already remote year of 1998 included in the Ken Schaphorst
Ensemble and where he starred in many remarkable concerts such as the one by
the Liberation Music Orchestra led by legendary bassist Charlie Haden in 2016,
one of the most memorable nights of the history of Guimarães Jazz.
Born in Puerto Rico in 1976, saxophonist Miguel Zenón
has been developing in the last three decades an extremely relevant trajectory
not only as composer and as instrumentalist but also as an academic and in the
quality of cultural activist, which makes of him one of the most respected
musicians of the North-American jazz circuit. Besides his impressive curriculum
of collaboration with some of the most highlighted names of contemporary music
such as Kenny Werner, Danilo Pérez, Kurt Elling or Steve Coleman, among many
others, Zenón presents a body of work as leader and composer that gravitates
towards the harmonization of jazz’s universalist roots with the many different
branches of influence exerted by the richness of the musical heritage from
Latin America. His compositions were commissioned by internationally renowned
North-American institutions such as Guggenheim and MIT and, in parallel with
his artistic activity, Zenón devotes much of his time to teaching in several
universities all around the world and. He is also, since 2011, the main force
behind the “Caravana Cultural”, a project of cultural investment in Puerto Rico
based on the promotion and the knowledge of jazz.
All these dimensions of this consistent ad competent
musician contribute to his status of respectability. By practicing, and
therefore propagating, a fundamental principle of generosity and reciprocity
involved in the exchange of musical ideas, Miguel Zenón raises the standards of
musical quality of those who listen to him and with whom he dialogues.
Simultaneously formal and sensual, and punctuated by a certain conceptualism
that adds up layers of meaning, the music created by the Puerto Rican
saxophonist will be, in Guimarães Jazz 2021, enrichened by three musicians of
meticulous technique and melodic sensibility. Venezuelan pianist Luis Perdomo,
Austrian bassist Hans Glawischnig and North-American drummer Henry Cole,
complemented by Zenón’s leadership, form an eclectic quartet of made of
different musical identities that merge in order to serve a music focused on
the deepening and improvement of musical traditions, harmonized around
universal assumptions of free navigation through sound.