El Arte del Bolero: Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo Duo

Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo present their Grammy Award winning album.

A few years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, alto saxophonist and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón and acclaimed pianist Luis Perdomo got together to play a few of their favorite tunes during an impromptu duo session. The results were spectacular, and they decided to release the music as an album which earned wide critical acclaim including a place as the #1 Latin Jazz Recording of the Year in the 2021 Jazz Critics Poll. The follow-up to that recording, El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2, was released in 2023 via Miel Music, garnering the band a Grammy Award. The title references the beauty of the Latin-American Songbook and the Bolero in particular. The album expands on the initial concept while maintaining the intent of playing songs the artists know and love. The process of choosing the repertoire began with the question, “Tu sabes que canción es bien buena?” (“You know which song is really good?”). Discussions about which versions to study, which keys to use, and which arrangements were the most inspirational followed. Melding their jazz sensibilities with the original spirit of the music, Zenón and Perdomo deliver alluring, forward-thinking performances while keeping the songs center stage. “The LatinAmerican Songbook is so vast and varied that it naturally lends itself to limitless explorations,” says Zenón in the liner notes. “We purposely looked beyond the Caribbean (exploring composers from México, Venezuela and Panamá, for example) because we wanted to emphasize the point that these songs deserved to be explored and recognized for what they are, beyond labels, categories and regionalisms. Just beautiful music that is a joy to perform and listen to.”