During the past decade, alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón has been at the forefront of fusing jazz and Puerto Rican music, much as timbalero Tito Puente did a half century earlier. It is fitting that on his latest album, after a short introductory piece titled "Oye!!!" ("listen!" or "hey!"), the 36-year-old San Juan-born musician rips into a fourteen-and-a-half-minute improvisation on "Oye Como Va" ("Hey, what's up?). The simple, riff-based 1963 Puente composition was popularized by Carlos Santana eight years later. Zenón opens his treatment with some unaccompanied rapid-fire Charlie Parker-imbued alto lines that dissolve into the basic five-note title phrase. Electric bassist Aldemar Valentin, trap drummer Tony Escapa, and conguero Reynaldo De Jesus soon enter in a cha-cha mode, their complex cross rhythms gentle one minute and ferocious the next, spurring the leader to one emotional peak after another.
Read more: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/miguel-zenandoacuten-and-the-rhythm-collective/Content?oid=3560563
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