 
So while Osby’s lightin’ fires, Miguel Zenón is cookin’. This Puerto Rican sax master brewed his latest disc, Jíbaro, his first for Branford Marsalis’ Marsalis Music imprint, with a most impressive array of achievements behind him. Among the finer points of his résumé are having studied at Boston’s prestigious Berklee School of Music and having played in such ensembles as the Either/Orchestra and, most recently, the Bay Area’s own SF Jazz Collective. All ten of these original compositions attempt to serve the rural Puerto Rican music known as jíbaro to a wider audience. However, without the guitar, cuatro and bongo, this sax-piano-bass-drums quartet sounds like it’s just playing driving, occasionally Latin-tinged straight-ahead jazz. There’s as much John Coltrane in the spirit of these performances as there is the hills of Puerto Rico. Not that that’s a bad thing – the disc is, quite simply put, a great listen. Drummer Antonio Sánchez, in particular, really kicks some of these tunes with steel caps. - Michael Fortes |
Miguel
Zenón