Recording of November 2024: Miguel Zenón: Golden City

Miguel Zenón: Golden City
Zenón, alto saxophone; eight others
Miel Music MZ10 (CD). 2024. Zenón, prod.; Ryan Streber, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½

In the current, not-so-new millennium, there have been very few jazz musicians more decorated than Miguel Zenón. Among the many accolades he has received are Grammy awards and nominations, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship (known as the "Genius Grant"). He has lived at or near the top of the major jazz polls for years on his instrument, the alto saxophone.

Zenón did not start out with any advantage except talent. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and raised in Residencial Lloréns Torres, the largest housing project on the island, notorious for its illegal drug trade. Scholarships and financial aid enabled him to come to the United States in 1996, at 19, and matriculate at the Berklee College of Music. Over the years, he has built an international career that includes, in addition to the honors cited above, associations with a long list of the world's most important jazz musicians and 16 recordings under his own name.

People disposed to categorize artists tend to classify Zenón as "Latin Jazz." Many of his projects have been inspired by the music of Puerto Rico. But his 16th album, Golden City, defies easy categorization. If it is an "ethnic" record, its ethnicity is the human race.

It is a concept album, a suite of 11 Zenón compositions related in some way to San Francisco. The concept is not limiting because, for Zenón, San Francisco is not just a place. It is a set of ideas, a subject that touches large swaths of history. He has said that he went "all the way back to the beginning with Native communities, all the way back to when it was Mexico, and the Gold Rush, and the waves of Asian migration."

Another factor that sets Golden City apart is Zenón's new band, a brass-centric nonet. Alan Ferber, Diego Urcola, and Jacob Garchik play various combinations of trombone, valve trombone, trumpet, and tuba. Miles Okazaki's guitar is at the center of the mix. The powerful rhythm section is pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Chris Tordini, drummer Dan Weiss, and percussionist Daniel Díaz. This formidable ensemble gives composer/arranger Zenón deep resources for the interpretation of his songs. The band can hit hard but can also render subtle, alluring blends of color and texture. And the available solo firepower is exceptional, starting with Zenón. The human cry of his alto saxophone is one of the most compelling sounds in jazz.

Pieces here like "Acts of Exclusion" (about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882), "9066" (about the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II), and "Displacement and Erasure" (about gentrification) are protest songs. It is a huge challenge for an artist to participate in the sweep of history through music. Zenón succeeds. For example, "9066" (named for President Roosevelt's executive order that established the internment camps), with its structure of rows and tones, is maze-like. In Zenón's striving, veering solo, he sounds trapped in the maze.

Such songs, with their diverse renderings of tension, agitation, and impact, are musical engagements with historical racism and xenophobia—evils still with us in the present. But not all the material deals with darkness. "Sacred Land" is a stirring incantation, introduced by Zenón's plaintive alto and elaborated by finely detailed brass counterpoint. Urcola takes a soaring valve trombone solo, and Mitchell's piano passion spills free. Then, at the end, Mitchell locks back up with the rest of the charging rhythm section. "The Power of Community" is an affecting melody first portrayed in Okazaki's gentle, contemplative, lingering guitar notes, then taken up by Zenón's fervent alto, then confirmed by the entire ensemble, whispering.

The brass timbres, solemn and rich, are ever-present in this music. All three trombonists are given solo space to contribute extended, far-reaching reflections on Zenón's themes.

Perhaps the most intriguing piece is "Sanctuary City." In 1989, San Francisco formally declared itself a Sanctuary City, committed to protecting its immigrant population. Zenón's song is a contrafact of a Wayne Shorter classic, "Sanctuary," from the Miles Davis album Bitches Brew. A contrafact is a composition that uses another song's chord changes but creates a new melody. There is a paradox here: "Sanctuary" is one of the most haunting, mysterious songs that Shorter ever wrote, whereas Zenón's adaptation (which uses Shorter's chords and even references his melody) is aspirational and life-affirming. Mitchell and Garchik improvise boldly and beautifully over Zenón's form.

This recording comes from an engineer (Ryan Streber) and studio (Oktaven AudiO in Mount Vernon, New York) that have been responsible for a lot of sonic excellence of late (footnote 1). The recorded sound of Golden City is neutral, balanced, and exact. It calls no attention to itself, leaving us with Zenón's extraordinary music.—Thomas Conrad


Footnote 1: Ryan Streber engineered the final album released on the Stereophile label, Sasha Matson's Molto Molto, which was also recorded at Oktaven AudiO.—John Atkinson

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