MacArthur Genius Fellow and jazz star Miguel Zenón is performing at the Rialto Center for the Arts on April 22. The Grammy-nominated jazz alto saxophonist will perform with the Georgia State University jazz band as part of the Rialto series “Season of Mastery.” Zenón joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes ahead of the concert to talk about his many works and projects interconnecting jazz and the musical traditions of his homeland of Puerto Rico.
Interview highlights:
Celebrating the folkloric musical styles of Puerto Rico:
“Plena is a genre from Puerto Rico … that was born, or documented for the first time, in the early 1900s. Historically it’s placed in the south and southwest of Puerto Rico, so in the towns of Ponce and Mayagüez and that area. It’s very percussive, of course, very African in nature. But it also has this vocal element that’s really present, like a lot of that music we find here in the Americas that has a mix of African elements and European,” Zenón explained.
“One of the things that really caught my attention about plena … it’s really embedded in Puerto Rican everyday culture. So one of the examples that I like to use is, for example, if you go to a birthday party and someone says, ‘Happy Birthday,’ it’s usually going to be sung to a plena rhythm, and kind of unconsciously people do that,” said Zenón. “So I became really interested in this idea of plena as a cultural manifestation, and eventually explored it and documented it on a project called ‘Esta Plena’ … ’Jibaro’ is another album that explores another genre of music from Puerto Rico — it’s rural music from the mountains that’s called jibaro music.’”
Zenon’s project bringing jazz shows to rural Puerto Ricans for free:
“Caravana Cultural is a program that focuses on presenting free of charge jazz concerts in the rural areas of Puerto Rico, specifically in these areas, because these are the areas that get the least amount of cultural activity,” Zenón said. “Most of the places that we take these concerts to, jazz is very new or unknown in those places. A jazz concert is sort of unheard of in a place like that.”
“The idea was really to use jazz and use the idea of culture, and sort of cement the belief that culture and cultural accessibility is something that’s integral to any society, and it should be accessible to everyone. I feel like a lot of times, as artists and musicians, we have the opportunity to present our music, but it’s not always that that music is accessible to everyone for many reasons, be it a ticket price or accessibility, to get to one place or another. So in this case, the idea was to put together those concerts and bring them directly to the communities.”
Collaborating with student musicians from GSU:
“I’m actually really excited that we were eventually able to put this together as part of the concert at the Rialto Theater,” said Zenón. “I’m also doing a residency at Georgia State and working with the students there. They’re a very talented group, and they’ve put a lot of hard work into the music. These opportunities for me I really cherish because I love to go out and meet younger musicians, interact with them, share experiences, and get to learn from them also … I’m sure they’re looking forward to the concert tomorrow as much as I am.”
Miguel Zenón’s performance takes place at the Rialto Center for the Arts on the Georgia State University campus on April 22 at 8:00 PM. More information and tickets are available here.
