Date: 10.04.2009
Publication: About.com
Author: Jacob Teichroew

Miguel Zenón’s Esta Plena is a continuation of the saxophonist’s previous work, complete with exuberant melodies and voluble phrases that float above knotty rhythmic terrain. The core group, featuring pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Hans Glawischnig, and drummer Henry Cole, is the same heard on Zenón’s last album, Awake, although Esta Plena is fitted around traditional Puerto Rican plena music.
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As music director of Machito and his Afro-Cubans in the 1940s, the late Cuban saxophonist and bandleader Mario Bauzá was a key figure in the development of what came to be known as Latin jazz. Yet, he often railed against the term.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about when people talk about Latin jazz,” he would say impatiently. “Nobody is playing Latin jazz. What they are playing is Afro-Cuban jazz.”

Then, point made, he would allow exceptions. Read more »

Even a decade ago, when the Chilean-born singer Claudia Acuña was launching her recording career, she sounded like nobody else in jazz. The South American sensibility that colored everything she sang, as well as the sometimes smoldering, sometimes imploring quality of her vocals made her an emerging artist of unmistakable promise.

But now, seasoned by uncounted performances around the world and the various hard knocks that inevitably come with a career in music, Acuña has matured into one of the most searing jazz vocalists of the under-40 generation. Read more »