Miguel Zenón

Early life

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Zenón was raised in Residencial Luis Llorens Torres, the largest housing project in the Island. Although he didn't grow up in a family of musicians, he was nevertheless exposed to various styles of music from a very early age. At age 10 he received his first lessons on music theory and solfeggio from Ernesto Vigoreaux, an elderly gentleman who traveled from the adjacent neighborhood of Villa Palmeras to Llorens Torres every day in order to work with disadvantaged youth in the community. Zenón would eventually be admitted to Escuela Libre de Música, a performing arts middle school and high school where he was trained for six years on classical saxophone by Angel Marrero. On the 11th grade he was exposed to jazz music by some of his friends at the school and became very interested in the concept of improvisation and on the music of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker. Although he had always shown interest on the natural sciences, he declined an engineering scholarship from the Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (the foremost engineering institution in the Island) and decided to pursue a career in music. After a year and a half worth of efforts to gather enough funds in scholarships and financial aid, Zenón moved to Boston in the spring of 1996 to begin his studies at Berklee College of Music.

Education and session work

At Berklee, Zenón's classmates included Antonio Sánchez, Anat Cohen, Avishai Cohen, Jaleel Shaw, and Jeremy Pelt. During his time in Boston, he was heavily influenced by Bill Pierce, Ed Tomassi, and Hal Crook. It was also during this time that he met Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez, who would become a mentor and collaborator. After graduating from Berklee in 1996, Zenón attended Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Dick Oatts, Nils Vigeland and Ludmila Ulehla and received a master's degree in Performance in 2001 before settling in New York City. As a sideman, he has worked with Charlie Haden, Fred Hersch, Kenny Werner, Guillermo Klein & Los Guachos, David Sánchez, The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, The Mingus Big Band, Ray Barreto, Jerry González & The Fort Apache Band, Jeff Ballard Trio, Bobby Hutcherson, Steve Coleman, Andy Montañez, Brian Lynch, Antonio Sánchez, Miles Okazaki, Paoli Mejías, David Gilmore, and Jason Lindner.

SFJazz Collective

Zenón is a founding member of the SFJAZZ Collective, an octet assembled by SFJAZZ, a non-for-profit organization in San Francisco. The group rehearses arrangements and compositions by the members of the band and takes part in educational activities. Membership has included Joshua Redman, Bobby Hutcherson, Nicholas Payton, Brian Blade, Renee Rosnes, Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Robin Eubanks, Matt Penman, Eric Harland, Mark Turner, Avishai Cohen, and Warren Wolf. Zenón is the only original member that remains in the band. He has served as artistic director for the first two seasons of the SFJAZZ Center, with Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Regina Carter, and John Santos.

The Miguel Zenón Quartet

In 1999 Zenón started getting together with Mexican drummer Antonio Sánchez (who he met at Berklee College of Music), Austrian bassist Hans Glawischnig (Zenón's bandmate in the David Sanchez Group) and Venezuelan pianist Luis Perdomo (a classmate of Glawischnig's at The Manhattan School of Music). They would meet for informal rehearsal sessions at Glawischnig's apartment in New York's Upper West Side and play through some of Zenón's early compositions. The group, which would eventually become the Miguel Zenón Quartet, soon started performing at various venues in the city, such as the C Note and The Jazz Gallery. In 2005 Sanchez began working regularly with The Pat Metheny Group, and was replaced in the Quartet by Puerto Rican drummer Henry Cole, for what has become the longest running version of the ensemble.

Recordings as leader

Teaching and composing

Zenón has given hundreds of lectures and master classes and has taught all over the world at institutions which include: The Banff Centre, Berklee College of Music, Siena Jazz, Conservatorium Van Amsterdam, Musik Akademie Basel, Conservatoire de Paris, University of Manitoba, Manhattan School of Music, Columbia University, Princeton University, Universidad Veracruzana, UMass- Amherst and The Brubeck Institute. He is also a permanent faculty member at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. As a composer he has been commissioned by SFJAZZ, The New York State Council for the Arts, Chamber Music America, The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, The Logan Center for the Arts, Jazz Reach, Peak Performances, PRISM Quartet and many of his peers.

Caravana Cultural

In 2011 Zenón founded Caravana Cultural, an initiative that organizes free-of-charge Jazz concerts in rural areas of Puerto Rico. Each concert focuses on the music of a distinguished jazz figure (Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, among others) and is preceded by a pre-concert presentation that touches on the basic elements of jazz and improvisation. The concert also incorporates young musicians from the community, who join the band on the last piece of the presentation. Caravana Cultural (which is funded and produced by Zenón) looks to make a “cultural investment” in the island using Jazz music as a vehicle, while at the same time expanding the audience for this genre in the Island.

Awards and honors

He has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg Pursuits, Jazz Times, Jazziz, Boston Globe, Billboard, Jazz Inside, Newsday, Details, as well as gracing the cover of Down Beat magazine on in 2010 and 2014. He has also topped the Rising Star Alto Sax category of the Down Beat Critic's Poll on four different occasions, topped both the Jazz Artist of the Year and Alto Saxophonist of the Year categories on the 2014 Jazz Times Critics Poll and was selected as the 2015 Alto Saxophonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalist Association. Zenón is a four-time Grammy nominee and a two-time Latin Grammy nominee. In 2008 he received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (which resulted in his recording Esta Plena) and later that year also received a fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation.

Family

Zenón lives with in Washington Heights area of New York City with his wife Elga and their daughter Elena.

As leader

As sideman

With Jeff Ballard

With Ray Barreto

With David Gilmore

With Hans Glawischnig

With Charlie Haden

With Guillermo Klein

With Jason Lindner

With Brian Lynch

With The Mingus Big Band

With Paoli Mejias

With Andy Montañez

With Miles Okazaki

With Luis Perdomo

With PRISM Quartet

With Antonio Sanchez

With David Sanchez

With SFJAZZ Collective

With Kenny Werner

With Dan Weiss

As Co-Producer

With Jonathan Suazo