Experience the Virtuosity and Creativity of Grammy Award-Winning
Miguel Zenón Quartet on Saturday, March 7
The Vermont Jazz Center is honored to present Miguel Zenón in concert with his long-standing quartet, on March 7, 2026. The Grammy Award-winning saxophonist will appear with Luís Perdomo on piano, Matt Penman on bass, and Henry Cole on drums. Aside from Penman, this group has been together for over 25 years. In promo for one of his sponsors, D’Addario saxophone reeds, Zenón discussed the positive attributes of working with the same people for so many years, saying, this quartet is “always there, always game. It doesn’t matter what I’m working on, the level of difficulty, the level of commitment – they’re always there. It’s not necessarily the norm these days, because the industry pushes us to present ‘all-star’ bands. It’s good to have a vehicle you can trust and conceptualize for – it’s been a blessing.” The music played by this band is consequential, heady, and heartfelt.
Zenón is known for creating projects that reflect his love for the music, culture, and people of his native Puerto Rico. In an interview with CODA podcasts (which explores the arts of Puerto Rico), he stated: “I have a close relationship with Puerto Rico - it is my principal inspiration and serves as a bridge to understanding and portraying my true self.” Nonetheless, Zenón is quick to point out that his varied discography, although greatly informed by his knowledge of Latin music, is broad. From the Grammy Award’s website, he is quoted as saying: "I consider myself a jazz musician who happens to be from Latin America." His influences stem from the language invented by Charlie Parker (bebop), the post-bebop stylings of John Coltrane (especially the albums Crescent and A Love Supreme), and are also strongly affected by his fascination with complex rhythms.
https://youtu.be/HopFBoMYXGQ?si=Z2Ya561RlCqS0xL-
Before his ascension as a leader, Zenón was mentored by the legendary Panamanian pianist and composer, Danilo Perez. He then went on to record and study with another of his mentors, David Sánchez. Zenón was a founding member of the 8-piece, SFJazz Collective (2004-2019) with whom he recorded the music of Chick Corea, Stevie Wonder, and Thelonious Monk and others, arranging a healthy selection of their epic charts. In the early 2000s he performed and recorded with percussionist Ray Barretto, bassist Charlie Haden, the Mingus Big Band and many others, where he demonstrated the extreme breadth of his abilities and interests. Zenón’s discography as a leader began in 2002 with the prescient recording: Looking Forward, he then embraced deep dives into such topics as Law Years: The Music of Ornette Coleman, Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook and two volumes of El Arte del Bolero (Volume 2 won him and pianist, Luís Perdomo a Best Latin Jazz Grammy in 2024). To date Zenón has recorded eighteen commercially available recordings as a leader. He has established himself as an artist who cuts his own path and, in doing so, has earned great critical acclaim.
After graduating high school, Zenón had to choose between a scholarship to Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (in Puerto Rico) to study engineering, or the Berklee College of Music to study music. Music won out, but his love for math, engineering and disciplined study have served him well, and these focuses continue to inform the way he embarks on new creative endeavors. In the interview with D’Addario, Zenón discussed his methodology: “Through all the different projects that I've made, what I really enjoyed is this idea of focusing on one project or one source of information, be it something that has to do with Puerto Rico, or something else that interests me…That research part, for me, is as important as writing the music.” Zenón’s curiosity, discipline and passion have led to an associate professorship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also affiliated with Columbia University where he is involved with the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. In 2008, Miguel received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the Genius Grant. The MacArthur website states that Zenón was granted the Award "for expanding the boundaries of Latin and jazz music through his elegant and innovative musical collages. In his work as a saxophonist and a composer, Zenón demonstrates an astonishing mastery of old and new jazz mediums, from African American and Latin American rhythmic concepts to free avant-garde jazz.” In 2022 he received an Honorary Doctorate from La Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
What makes Zenón’s music so important, so interesting, and so listenable? There are three attributes that are consistent throughout his body of work: the intentional quality of his sound, his unfathomable attention to rhythmic detail, and his heart connection to the music and to the community.
https://youtu.be/dqpoTa0pIDw?si=YcYdfNLsLOyBDy9s
Sound: Even though he can play biting lines that cut through and lead a musical arrangement, Zenón sculpts his tone and balances his intensity with great beauty. In a conversation with Larry Appelbaum at the Library of Congress, he alluded to his sound as a thumbprint that represents his identity: “I'm attracted to personality in sound. And that's something that I work on myself. I've always been really interested in the idea that the instrument is a reflection of our personality and it's a reflection of the way our bodies move…So when I hear Charlie Parker or musicians in that category, I hear the personality in their sound…I'm listening to a connection to the evolution of the tradition of jazz, you know. What connection do they have to the evolution of the language? So when I hear players, be it older or more modern players, I'm listening for that connection.” Zenón’s sound is instantly recognizable – it reflects his intentionality and individuality, but it is also a product that embodies the legacy of his influences.
Rhythm: When a listener hears a sound emanating from a musician’s instrument they respond first to that impulse, but afterwards, it’s the rhythm that keeps them engaged. Zenón’s ability to create and manipulate rhythmical tapestries leaves most musicians in the dust. But he would never use rhythm superficially to impress; he uses rhythm as a tool to create new layers of sounds, as a prompt for composing, and as a visceral device to make people move. In an interview on the Dr. Jazz Talks podcast, Zenón discussed his approach: “Rhythm has always been an interest of mine. Even before I played any instruments I was always attracted to the abstract idea of rhythm and eventually, once I started to understand the theory of rhythm, I became even more attracted to it because there was a certain intellectual side to it. But I'm also interested in rhythm as an agent for groove…I want it to feel like it's grooving, you know, like it has a drive – it’s something that you can kind of feel…I'm trying to find ways to translate that complexity into something that…could move you in a in a certain way. A lot of the things that I'm interested in about rhythm have to do with different rhythmic dimensions… [so that] they could exist, for example, in seven and five at the same time.”
Social Endeavors: Zenón is a person who “pays it forward,” using his involvement with music as a direct way to benefit his chosen communities and his audience. In the CODA podcast referred to above, the interviewer mentioned that Zenón’s visit to her village in Puerto Rico several years earlier, was a life-changing experience. She is not alone. In 2011 Zenón used the money he received from the MacArthur “Genius” fellowship to launch the Caravana Cultural Project, a jazz awareness program he designed to eventually visit all 78 municipalities of Puerto Rico. In a conversation with Melissa Aldana (a saxophonist from Chile), Zenón stated - "I wanted to go to places where people wouldn't normally have access to this kind of music... to eliminate the 'taboos' around who should listen to jazz." Caravana’s programming pays tribute to major figures from the jazz canon like Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Keith Jarrett. The free of charge, day-long events include pre-concert educational sessions, a performance with Zenón’s quartet, and the on-stage inclusion of area youth musicians. Other indications of his community involvement include Zenón’s participation in a Jazz Ambassadors tour to West Africa, his continued work with the music school of his youth, and a recent commission by SFJazz. For the SFJazz commission, Zenón conducted over 50 in-depth interviews with immigrants from the San Francisco area that served to inspire the compositions he created for his recording, the Golden City Suite. His achieved goal was to bring awareness to the tremendous impact that the immigrant communities have added to the rich culture of the Bay Area. The resultant recording, Golden City Suite, was nominated for a 2025 Grammy award.
Joining Zenón for this concert will be members of his quartet. All, except for the bassist, have been with him now for about twenty-five years. In the interview with the Dr. Jazz Talks podcast, Zenón commented “it's a luxury to be able to have a working band. I write music with them in mind, I don't want to say it makes things easy, but it's definitely comforting. I like each one of them, and hopefully they like me as well.”
Born in 1971 in Caracas, Venezuela, the group’s pianist Luís Perdomo was playing on Venezuelan TV and radio stations from the age of twelve. He eventually realized that he would have to travel to New York City to fulfill his musical destiny. “Being in a more competitive and challenging environment was a big change that I welcomed,” he says. In 1993, Perdomo relocated to New York and enrolled with a full scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music. Perdomo has appeared on over two hundred recordings and has become sideman to artists like Dave Douglas, David Sanchez, Tom Harrell, Steve Turre, Ben Wolfe, Ray Barretto, Brian Lynch, David Gilmore, Conrad Herwig, Ignacio Berroa, Ralph Irizarry and Timbalaye. He was a member of Ravi Coltrane’s Quartet for ten years and is a founding member of this quartet.
Bassist Matt Penman is originally from New Zealand. He moved to the U.S. to attend Berklee College of Music and ended up as a first-call bassist in the NYC jazz scene. He is an established member of the SFJazz Collective and is the founder of the James Farm quartet, a jazz super-group with Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks and Eric Harland. Penman has recorded and performed with John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Wayne Shorter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Kenny Werner, Aaron Goldberg, Dave Douglas, Chris Cheek, Seamus Blake, Guillermo Klein, Rebecca Martin, Nicholas Payton, Fred Hersch and Madeleine Peyroux. He is featured on over 100 recordings and has released four albums as a leader.
Drummer Henry Cole performs and records with Grammy winner David Sánchez, the Edward Simon Trio, Fabian Almazan, Residente, Calle 13, Gerald Clayton, Ben Wendel, Eric Reed, Seamus Blake, the LeBoeuf Brothers and others. He leads the Afro-Beat Collective. Born in 1979 and raised in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. He has shared the stage as a performer with artists such as Giovanni Hidalgo, Dave Valentin, Jerry Gonzalez, Danilo Pérez, Branford Marsalis, Luís Marin, William Cepeda’s Afro-Rican Jazz, salsa artists La PVC, the rock band Vivanativa and many others.
https://youtu.be/HtTbbRe7fDc?si=su7p5HqHEt454K5o
Viva The Latin Jazz!!
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