{"id":9410,"date":"2019-09-20T15:36:57","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T19:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinomusiccafe.com\/?p=9410"},"modified":"2019-09-27T15:15:38","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T19:15:38","slug":"miguel-zenons-sonero-the-music-of-ismael-rivera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinomusiccafe.com\/2019\/09\/20\/miguel-zenons-sonero-the-music-of-ismael-rivera\/","title":{"rendered":"Miguel Zenon’s “Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera”"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the release of “Sonero: the Music of Ismael Rivera<\/em>“, Miguel Zenon<\/a> continues his mission to preserve part of the Puerto Rican culture through the magic of Jazz.<\/p>\n

“Sonero<\/em>“, Another Great Concept<\/h3>\n

The concept behind “Sonero<\/em>” has been used by Miguel very successfully throughout his career in other albums like “Esta Plena<\/em>” (2009) and “Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook<\/em><\/a>” (2011). One distinction between “Sonero<\/em>” and these two previous albums is that in “Sonero” the quartet plays alone, with no other supporting musicians.<\/p>\n

\"Miguel
Miguel Zenon provides another great concept album making jazz version of Ismael Rivera hit songs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In “Sonero<\/em>” Miguel employs the same approach of creating jazz music out of the Puerto Rican popular songbook. Ismael Rivera’s music was very popular since the 50’s through the mid-60’s with Cortijo y su Combo and then through the 80’s on his own. He was able to record great compositions that became emblems of popular music in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

In “Alma Adentro<\/em>“, Zenon already included a song made popular by Ismael Rivera in “Incomprendido<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

For the most part, Miguel keeps that same approach in “Sonero<\/em>“. He seems to use the original song as inspiration to compose in top of it. The results can vary greatly, on purpose. Some songs follow closely to the original throughout the song, while others may stray so far away from the original that they are hard to recognize.<\/p>\n

For example, “La Gata Montesa<\/em>” is an example of the latter. The song is over 7 minutes long, but the first 5 1\/2 minutes have no resemblance to the original. It isn’t until the last 1 1\/2 minutes that we get Miguel’s version of the original. I’m not pretending to critique Miguel because of it, but rather want you to get a sense of how his creative mind works. But I have to confess, that when I first heard the song, I thought it was a different song, one that I didn’t know from Ismael Rivera.<\/p>\n