>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being here. On behalf of the chief of the Hispanic division, Dr. Georgette Dorn, I would like to welcome you all to this very special event with saxophonist, composer and educator, Miguel Zenon. I am joined by my colleague from the music division Larry Applebaum who is senior music reference specialist in the music division. I am Talia Guzman-Gonzalez and I am a reference librarian and music librarian specialist in the Hispanic division. Miguel Zenon was born and raised on the beautiful island of Puerto Rico, where he attended Le Universidad es Musica. He received his bachelor's degree in jazz studies at Berkeley College of Music and a master's degree in jazz performance from the Manhattan School of Music. But as we know, musicians test their chops collaborating with others. And the list of musicians Miguel has collaborated with is quite impressive. I will not name them all of course, but they include Charlie Hayden, David Sanchez, Gear McKlein, the Jeff Ballard Trio, Steve Coleman and Dominguez Band among many others. He has been a [inaudible] in nearly 80 recordings. 15 of those recordings have been with the award-winning band SF Jazz Collective, of which Miguel is one of the founding members. Miguel has also led his own quartet for 15 years and has recorded ten albums, all received with the highest praise by the press and the public, starting with Looking Forward in 2002, selected by the New York Times as the number one alternative jazz album of the year. His latest album, Typical, was released this year in February. I want to highlight just a couple of things from Miguel's outstanding and impressive career at such a young age. And we'll get to talk about many others in our conversation. Miguel is the recipient of a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation which supported the recording of Esta Blena, hailed by critics in the US and Puerto Rico as one of the best recordings of 2009. It also received two Grammy nominations, one for best improvised solo and one for best jazz recording of the year, as well as a Latin Grammy nomination for best Latin jazz recording of the year. Miguel was again nominated for a Grammy award in 2012 for best large jazz ensemble album. And another Latin Grammy award for best instrumental album for Alma Alventro, the Puerto Rican Songbook, which pays tribute to the compositions and explorers of music of some of the great Puerto Rican composers, [inaudible], Pedro Flores, Rafael Hernandez and Silvia [inaudible]. And is my personal favorite album. His ninth album, Identities are Changeable, also received a Grammy award nomination in 2014 and was hailed by critics as one of the best jazz recordings of the year. Besides being an accomplished musician and composer, Miguel is also an educator and is a permanent faculty member of the New England Conservatory of Music. He has also taught and led workshops around the world, including the Bounce Center, [inaudible], the Conservatory of Paris, among many others. In 2003 he was chosen by the Kennedy Center to teach and perform in West Africa as part of their jazz ambassadors program. And since 2011 he has led the program [Spanish name] in Puerto Rico and will be talking about that briefly. In 2008, Miguel received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the Genius Grant, for -- and I quote from the Fellowship's page -- "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, Zenon demonstrates an astonishing mastery of old and new jazz mediums, from African American and Latin American rhythmic concepts to free avant garde jazz." Miguel, welcome to the Library of Congress and thank you for being here. >> Miguel Zenon: Thank you. It's great to be here, Talia. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: For today's event I will be asking Miguel a couple questions, and my colleague Larry will be asking some others. We'll have an opportunity of Q and A and there's a special treat of Miguel playing for us today as well. So we're in for a good time. So recently, Kevin Whitehead reviewed Typical on Fresh Air, and he introduced you with the following words. He said, "There are lots of sides to Zenon's music that only begin with a complex insider/outside status of the Puerto Rican jazz musician." So I would like to know what drew you to sax as an instrument? And considering the music landscape in Puerto Rico in the 1980's and 1990's, what drew you to jazz specifically? >> Miguel Zenon: Well like you mentioned, I went to [Spanish name] which is a performing arts middle school and high school in the capital of Puerto Rico. I went there for six years. And when I first started studying there, I kind of went in with the idea that I just wanted to play an instrument, you know. I didn't really have a particular instrument in mind. For some reason I was attracted to the piano. When I got there I was about 11 years old. But when I got there the first day and you were involved on your instrument, everybody got the same idea as I did of course. And all the piano spaces were taken. So I had to choose something else and I think the options were like oboe, bassoon, guitar and saxophone. And I think there was someone in my family who had a saxophone lying around. It just kind of made sense out of all those instruments. I was like, "Yeah, it kind of makes sense. Maybe saxophone." And of course it eventually grew on me. But at first I was more attracted to the idea of being able to play any instrument, not really an instrument in particular. I was just attracted to music in general. And I went to that school for six years. It was all classical training, so there was no jazz at the school obviously. I was exposed to a lot of popular music and dance music. And some of my early experience as a professional musician was when I was about 14, 15. We were playing salsa music, you know, dance music. So that was kind of my early introduction to playing something that wasn't like chamber music. And then eventually towards the end of my period of school I discovered jazz through friends in the school passing around tapes and talking about you know, so and so and Charlie Parker. It could be a Latin American musician like Pachito Rivera or someone like that. And I was really curious about the idea of improvisation at the time, because I had never been exposed to anything like that, or had any formal kind of training. But I was really curious about it. What did it for me at the time was hearing Charlie parker play. The first time I heard him I was blown away, not only because he played the same instrument I played and he played it with such an amazing facility and great technical ability and dexterity, et cetera. But when I realized that he was improvising, I was blown away. Because I was like, "How can you do that and still play the instrument that way?" You know, such an amazing facility. So I kind of became in a good way obsessed about trying to understand what these musicians were doing. Discovery jazz music changed my life because even though I had been studying music for a certain amount of years at the school, I was never like really serious about it. You know, I never really considered the possibility of being a musician. You know, I was interested in other things. I was attracted to the natural sciences and other things. I was probably going to follow that road somehow. But discovering jazz, it really made me passionate about music, you know? And I had something I wanted to understand and discover. And from that point on, you know, it just became a goal of mine and I just kind of embarked on that trip, you know, ever since then. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: I'm sure you would have been a great scientist, but I'm glad you chose the sax. Puerto Rican culture plays a central role in your compositions, right? And in a way it is an archive of our musical traditions, [Spanish name]. And at the same time it's a laboratory where you experiment with combinations of sounds and rhythms to create something new. What compelled you to develop this concept in your own compositions? >> Miguel Zenon: Yes, so that process was also something that came later. I mean, after I got really interested in jazz and I realized that jazz at least at that time was not something that I could pursue in Puerto Rico. There were no higher education institutions at the time where I could study jazz. So I had to go somewhere else. And Berkeley in Boston at the time made sense. So I ended up going to Berkeley. And when I got to Berkeley, I realized fairly quickly that I was lacking a lot in terms of sort of like the language of the jazz style if you will, you know. So I had a lot of work to do. And I concentrated on really trying to play jazz well, you know, studying the music, transcribing, listening, all the things that musicians do, you know, like immerse yourself in a style of music. And I wasn't writing any music and I wasn't thinking about anything else that wasn't jazz music for about two or three years. About the time that I graduated Berkeley I started writing a little music and kind of started to think about what it was that I wanted, if I wrote music, what it was my music would sound like. I realized that all this effort that I had put in it to study jazz music was not something that I had done with Puerto Rican music. I realized that I knew jazz music better than Puerto Rican music because I had studied the history in a more systematic way. You know, I grew up in Puerto Rico, so I knew the sound of the music, but I couldn't explain it to somebody else if they asked me. So I decided that I wanted to be able to do that, and I sort of like again just went into this kind of like -- treating it almost like a research project. Saying, "Okay, what is this style of music? Where did it come from? What is it's history? Different dimensions, how deep is the family? Et cetera, et cetera." And as I would go into this style of music or elements of culture or folklore, et cetera, a lot of those sounds started finding their way into some of the music that I was starting to write. And as I did it more and more, I realized that I would get a lot more from the research if I just focused on one theme, you know. So you plan your music or some of the others. So a lot of my recording projects were born out of this interest to understand Puerto Rican music and Puerto Rico better, just for my own sake. And I also feel that it just kind of helped me. I mean, I've been living in the United States for about 20 something years now, so it helps me connect to Puerto Rico from afar. It helped me find a connection to my side of what made me a Puerto Rican and connected to my country that we use in the music. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: That's very interesting about the connections to the island, because your recording from 2014, Identities are Changeable, explores precisely those links that the diaspora has with the island and how we define what it is to be Puerto Rican. Could you share with us how you approached this project and the role that the Puerto Rican communities in Puerto Rico and the US played? And what inspired you? How did they inspire you to create it? >> Miguel Zenon: Yeah, so Identities are Changeable was a project that was born out of again just curiosity or me trying to understand a side of what it means to be Puerto Rican. And like I said, I've been living in the States for a long time, mostly in the New York City area. I have family in New York, like many of us Puerto Ricans do. And I've experienced sort of firsthand this idea of second and third generation Puerto Ricans outside of Puerto Rico. And this kind of role that exists, you know, with Puerto Ricans outside of Puerto Rico, et cetera. So I was really curious about what this experience was like, because this experience was not my experience, you know. And I wanted to understand it better. So what I decided to do was -- this all came out of an initiative, a commission from Walker University when they first approached me. Okay, so now I can do this thing. And what I decided to do was interview a series of individuals, all second or third generation Puerto Ricans born and raised in or around the New York City area. That was kind of my first step. I just wanted to talk to them about their experience, about you know, how they felt as Puerto Ricans or New Yorkers or both, and their identity in general. And as I went through the interviews and the questions of getting people to join the project, I started to think that what I wanted to do was use the interviews, like clips from the interviews basically, something to lace with the music. So they kind of give their voice, like a musical identity almost, like a solo. So that's what I ended up doing on the project. I was very new to this whole idea of trying to combine music with some other kind of multimedia platform. But I think ultimately what I ended up getting from the project, not only in terms of information for myself, but trying to understand this idea better, was that I was able to think very differently about this idea of a what a national identity means to us as Puerto Ricans, and Puerto Ricans both on the island and outside of the island. And of course I would say probably 10 years ago I had a very narrow-minded definition of what this is. And now after going through this project I think about it pretty much totally differently. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: Besides your permanent position in the New England School of Music and the workshops and seminars that you teach around the world, you also have a project in Puerto Rico since 2011 called [Spanish name], which in a way sort of gives you that other leg, you know. One leg here in the US and the other leg in Puerto Rico with that project. Could you tell us a little bit about that? >> Miguel Zenon: Yeah, definitely. So [Spanish name] is a project that was born out of an interest of trying to use in this case jazz music because it's what I do as a platform to sort of preach the importance of culture in society. And how these sort of cultural nativities that are very -- you know, they're not at least to my eyes simple things, you know. Music and art and all those things should be available to everyone, you know. And I feel that a lot of places around the world that have done this really well have done this with a great amount of success. So I've always had this idea in mind of taking jazz music and taking it to places where it's not you know -- where people are not as accustomed to seeing it or having it around and just giving them the opportunity to be exposed. You know, I don't really see it as a way of commercializing the music or opening up the gap to one audience or anything. I just feel like it's important for people to be exposed to as much as possible and let them decide if this stuff is for them or not. So this idea became the reality in part with the help of this injection of funds from the MacArthur Foundation. In 2011 like you mentioned, we started putting together these concerts. What we do is pretty simple. We put together a free of charge jazz concert in the rural areas of Puerto Rico, so everything outside of the metropolitan areas of San Juan and surrounding areas. And each concert is focused on a specific historical jazz figure, be it Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Parker, et cetera. I mean, the locations of course, we've been all over the place. We've been to [inaudible] and some of those places too. And they vary from theater to school theaters to you know -- I think we did one at the Lion's Club with everybody, you know. But that's a part of the idea. We use what the community has at its disposal and we have [inaudible] and people come out. So it's a mixed crowd, you know, from kids to older people and families. It's been great. So a part of the thing we do is we put together the concert. Before the concert we'll do a pre-concert talk where we talk about the history of jazz. We talk about sort of the basic concepts of improvisation. So we give people sort of like a perspective of what they're about to hear. Because most of the people, I would say of all the concerts we do, about 75% of the public have never been to a jazz concert before. So we try to give them a little perspective. We talk about the music of a chosen composer, you know, be it Miles or -- we talk about their life, their history, et cetera. And then we do the concert and we always finish the concert by incorporating a group of young students from the community and that's always of course the climax of the thing. Because not only you get to kind of like pass this on to a younger generation of young musicians who are interested in getting out there, but also I feel that it's important that these communities feel that they're part of the project. That it's not just us coming in and playing and leaving, but they're adding something to it. And just a couple years ago we started giving out little like scholarships, like a little grant to one of the students that plays. So we give them a little money so they can buy instruments or take lessons and et cetera. And I think we've had maybe 11 or 12 concerts. I can't remember. But I would definitely say that this has been the most -- at least to me -- the most rewarding experience that I've been in with music. You know, this idea of just putting these concerts together, not thinking about ticket sales, not thinking about publicity or anything. Just go play. And it's probably back to this idea of the purity of the art form, the purity of music and just being able to get there, play, connecting with someone and have them just enjoy it for the sake of music. For me it's been super rewarding. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: Would you say then that [Spanish name] -- to me at least, I see it as a vehicle that shows how music and culture in general is fundamental to everyone's daily life, right? And the people in those communities that see it also have a right to this for sure. Would you say that music education is essential to the development also of a sense of citizenship or commitment to something? >> Miguel Zenon: Yeah, I totally feel that way. I think especially these days, this idea of having music and just artistic expression around us, especially as we're growing up, when we're young, I think it's not given the importance that it should be. And just kind of going back to my education in Puerto Rico, and I went to a fine arts school and became a musician. But a lot of my peers did not, you know. They became scientists and baseball players and all kinds of stuff. But when I see them now, I feel we have this connection because they went through the process of seeing music from the inside, you know, as performers and learning to play an instrument and getting through this artistic expression even if it's something that they're not going to use as a way of making a living. It changed them, you know. And I feel that it's so important to give everyone, as many people as we can, the opportunity to go through the process of seeing what it feels to create something from an artistic point of view. And I think that's why it's so important to have this available and have this out there. And I'm a firm believer in this. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: In your webpage -- which I encourage you all to visit. It's pretty interesting. You have a section of other interests, and you're into literature. Which gives us a glimpse into you know, your broad interest in other cultural things. Could you tell us what role literature played in your music, if any? You have a recording also called [Spanish name], which is pretty unique. >> Miguel Zenon: Yeah, well you know, I do enjoy reading. I mean, it's something that I just enjoy for the sake of it, like I like listening to music and everything else. This project, as you mentioned, was unique in its own way because what I did was I focused on this [inaudible] book along with this friend of mine from Paris. And it just kind of made sense because that's kind of like what the book jumps back, from Paris. We're trying to put something together and that book just happened to be like the perfect sort of platform. And it just happens to be my favorite. So we tackled it in a way that we used the book as inspiration to write pieces and et cetera, et cetera. But it's not something that I usually do, you know. I don't usually think about music that way, meaning -- let me see how to say this. When I write music or when I'm thinking about music, I don't rely as much on random inspiration. And I deal with music more in a step by step kind of systematic way, where when I write something or when I'm practicing I already kind of have a set of materials or tools that I already have with me. So even though there always is some improvisation and of course some randomness, I try to rely very little on that aspect of it. So in that sense if I'm reading a book, it's very rare that I'm going to write a piece of music based on how that book made me feel. It's going to be more likely that I'm going to take a paragraph and try to translate that to musical terms somehow and then write it more from that perspective. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: And I have one last question before we move to Larry's portion. I want to ask something about Typical, which is your recent album. I saw the album cover and I read the word typical which could be translated to folk music in a sense. And it's not exactly that, right? When you listen, it's not typical music in any sense. So why that title? Why Typical? And how is this term used in this project specifically? >> Miguel Zenon: So the title came from this idea of -- like you say, when we as Puerto Ricans or Latin Americans here this word typical, or musica typica, it usually means something with folklore. Something down to earth, you know, earthy kind of thing. And when I was thinking about this and I was thinking about the meaning and what it means, I started thinking about how this at least to my eyes could mean a style of music that's connected with a very specific group of people. Like Musica Typica from Puerto Rico. Then you have typica from Cuba and everybody has their own kind of way about it. You can break it up into different sub-genres and all that. And this recording specifically, I was writing music that was inspired pretty much directly by my quartet and the members of the quartet. And I was thinking about you know, writing pieces that represent our sound and represent you know, like how we perform as a band and this sort of like this language that we've created together so we can communicate with each other. And I felt that that was kind of our music, you know. And Typical in this case comes from that. You know the title comes from something saying, "This is our sound. This is the music that sort of represents us." And the cover is a great picture, which is from here. And I usually go through this process of trying to pick a cover and really getting to historical pictures, actually those that are connected to Puerto Rico somehow. And I found this great picture by [inaudible]. And then going through the filters, I found out it was here. And the process was actually really simple. And it just worked out perfectly. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: Thank you. Well I'm going to pass the mic to you, Larry. Thank you. >> Larry Applebaum: I like those questions. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: Thank you. >> Larry Applebaum: And of course the answers. I have many questions to ask, but even before we start those, I want to show you something and get your reaction to it. Let me put down the water. I want you to describe what you're seeing. >> Miguel Zenon: Well, maybe if I read it. >> Larry Applebaum: This is one of the treasures from our collection in the music division. >> Miguel Zenon: This is Barbados, right? >> Larry Applebaum: Right. >> Miguel Zenon: But it's got a different title. >> Larry Applebaum: Right. >> Miguel Zenon: What's the title? >> Larry Applebaum: Kangaroo. So this is in the hand of Charlie Parker. >> Miguel Zenon: Oh my God, this is something else. You know, it's funny you show me this, because there's this rumor that goes around in music. I've heard it a couple times that Charlie didn't know how to notate music and he wasn't musically like trained, like he just played everything by ear and all that. And I'm always like, "Man, it's impossible he can play that way." And it's great to see this. You know, it's amazing. Let me see if I'm getting the notes right. [ Humming ] Well this is something else. >> Larry Applebaum: Yeah. >> Miguel Zenon: I'm glad to see that. >> Larry Applebaum: So I'm curious -- because you mentioned Charlie Parker earlier. When you listen to an improvising saxophonist or any creative musician, what are you listening for? >> Miguel Zenon: Well, that's a good question. You know, as an instrumentalist and someone that spends a lot of time playing an instrument, it's hard for me to disconnect from listening to music from that perspective, you know? So usually if I hear someone playing, especially if they're playing jazz, if they're playing any music, I'm pretty much hearing chords and notes and rhythm you know, first. That's usually the first thing I hear. What keys it's on, what notes are playing, what's the beat, what's the feel. You know, that kind of stuff. But the music that I find usually attractive in terms of if I'm listening to an improviser for example, or someone that's kind of from a jazz perspective, I'm attracted to personality in sound. And that's something that I work on myself. And I've always been really interested on this idea that the instrument is a reflection of our personality and it's a reflection of the way our bodies move. And because I'm an instrumentalist I know how hard it is to attain and get to a point where you get that instrument to really be an extension of you. So when I hear Charlie Parker or [inaudible] musicians in that category and I hear the personality in their sound, that's the first thing that brings me in before what they actually are playing, you know. And then, again I'm really just saying this specifically about jazz music. 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. And again, I think I might have mentioned this before, but when I think about jazz music -- when I first started getting into music I realized fairly quickly that this was a language first of all. And second that it wasn't my language. So I had to kind of learn it from scratch, much like learning to speak English in a way, you know? So when I hear players, be it older or more modern players, I'm listening for that connection. And it's easier for me to relate to someone that has a deeper connection or something that I can hear more clearly than someone that doesn't. You know, so if I hear that connection, in some way it's easier for me to relate. >> Larry Applebaum: So language is one thing. I want to ask you about sound, specifically your sound on the horn. When we learn to speak, we're not necessarily conscious of the sound of our voice, the spoken voice. But I wonder, how conscious is your sound on your horn? >> Miguel Zenon: Well, I like to think about this in sort of like two ways. One way is the personality thing that I mentioned before, where we're really trying to portray something that's unique to us. And it's like it might be inspired by someone you admire, like in my case Charlie Parker and Coltrane or somebody that I like. And probably my sound is going to be some kind of combination of that, or try to be a combination of that and other things that I like too. So that's one side of it. But in my opinion that's sort of like the easier side of it. The harder part is really being able to connect to the instrument physically. And as an instrumentalist, a lot of the things that we do and most of the time that we spend on the instrument is trying to make this connection as natural and seamless as possible. That takes a lot of time of course. And at least myself, I don't feel that when I pick up the instrument, the saxophone, it's not something that my body is naturally instructed to do. You know, I have to train myself to be able to actually produce a sound and a quality sound. So I have to use parts of my body when I play the saxophone and use them in a very specific way. And I use them in a way that I don't use doing anything else, doing my daily routine. I have to use my diaphragm in a very specific way, use my lungs in a very specific way, the muscles in my face and my oral cavity and my throat. That all adds to that idea of just being able to produce a sound, like one note. So to me it's a balance between this physical, almost like an athlete, fitness kind of thing where you really need to be fit and in shape in order to be able to produce quality sound. And then once you can control that, then you try to bring to that sound personality. And like I said, this could take forever. This could take forever. >> Larry Applebaum: Was there a point at which you felt you had finally arrived at your own sound? Your own musical identity? >> Miguel Zenon: There was definitely a point where I felt that I was in the right direction, that I felt that I had found something that worked and I just kind of needed to finesse it a little bit. >> Larry Applebaum: There's a mysterious process especially for jazz players, because so much of what they do involves improvisation. So here's one of my questions, is how did you learn to improvise? >> Miguel Zenon: Okay. So one thing about improvisation that's important to understand -- and this is something again that helped me immensely -- was to understand the difference between improvisation as a general concept and improvisation within a language or within a musical language in this case. Like for example, when I was in Puerto Rico and I was listening and mostly playing salsa music and listening to that music, the language that I was using to improvise within that music was very different than the language I would play if I was playing Barbados or Kangaroo. The music is a different language. I'm improvising in both cases, you know, but using a different language. Again, kind of going back to this idea of English and Spanish, I might be saying the same thing but using a different language and improvising, et cetera. So once that became clear to me, the next step for me was, okay, so I want to improvise but I don't have enough language in this case. So I need to acquire more language. So I do that by listening, by transcribing, my immersing myself in this language, in this case in the jazz language. And as I get myself more and more immersed in this language, a lot of these things that you know Charlie Parker played, or Corbin Hawk or Alyssa Young or whoever I like. And I check that and I was influenced by it. It starts as something that you basically repeat, repetition. And then it eventually just becomes second nature. You internalize it and it becomes part of you. And the combinations of all these players eventually becomes your personality. Along with your own ideas. I think there's a point where you -- at least for myself there was a point where I started to look at a Charlie Parker composition or solo and instead of necessarily repeating what he played, I would sort of analyze what he played. And say, "Okay, so if he did this this way on this chorus with this rhythm and these notes, that means that I can turn it around and do it differently, or take a couple more steps." And you start building your language on the idea of addition and assimilation. And then eventually you use that language to improvise. So I see it more as improvisation is not necessarily -- in this case jazz improvisation is not where you just go up and play whatever comes to your mind. But it's sort of like an organized improvisation. You're improvising on ideas based on information that you've already got. And you're using that information to improvise. >> Larry Applebaum: I can hear that you are a somewhat analytic person. Are you self-critical? >> Miguel Zenon: Yeah. Yeah, you could say that too. [Laughs]. >> Larry Applebaum: So when you're listening to your own music, or really for any kind of music, what do you think makes a good solo? >> Miguel Zenon: Well, I think it's a little different when I'm listening to myself and when I'm listening to someone else, especially if it's somebody that I admire. Someone like [inaudible] and Coltrane and all those. You know, a lot of those solos, I listen to them differently because they forge something like what I play. So it's harder for me to be critical. But with myself, and a lot of my friends and me do this all the time -- where I record a concert and I go listen back. And I say, "Okay, maybe this works and that doesn't work, you know, from a perspective of performance." It's also perspective of just like a player, or you know, when I'm naturally playing and improvising. And I'm listening for things as basic as time, you know, intonation, sound, to interaction with other musician. You know, am I reacting to what's around me, or am I just kind of going blindly and on my own kind of space? And I'm also trying to find when I listen back to it at least, I'm trying to find like a connecting sort of thread through the improvised solo. And I'm trying to find something that -- you know, you hear this all the time, tells the story. It's kind of that, but it's more -- I like to think about it more from the perspective of, am I paying enough attention not only to what's around me, but am I paying enough attention to what I'm playing so that I'm not just sort of rambling and I can actually use the ideas I'm putting out there to build something that's logical and basic? >> Larry Applebaum: You teach also. Can you teach someone to swing? >> Miguel Zenon: I think so. I mean, it's not going to be the kind of thing where it's going to take five minutes. But I think you can do it. >> Larry Applebaum: How would you do it? >> Miguel Zenon: I think it's like anything. I think that kind of thing has to do with -- it's almost like learning an accent, like if you're speaking a language and learning an accent, you know. Like I was somewhere the other day and someone told me I had a New York accent and I was blown away by that. I was like, "Really? A New York accent? I've never even thought about that before." But it's almost like if you're teaching someone to learn a British accent or something like that. It kind of is -- the only way you can do that is by immersion, you know. By just listening and playing along and listening and playing along. And a lot of times what I end up saying, when I hear someone play, like a drummer or a pianist and I'm talking about slow swing for example, and I will say like your swing feel is too straight or it's too exaggerated and so on. Sometimes it's too much on the other side. So I would say something like that. So I would say, "Okay, so your swing feel is too straight. So why don't you check out so and so and so and so, who's going to pull you to the other side?" And if it's too much of the other side, then I'm going to say, "Okay, so you should be listening to this, this, this and this." You know, just immersion and listening and transcription and trying to find your place with what you lay. I mean, a lot of what we do as jazz musicians is trying to prove to ourselves in the place of musicians we admire. So we play along with records. You know, we play along with records to try to see if I'm going to play a [inaudible] solo or a Coltrane solo. I'm going to put that record on and I'm going to learn that solo, and I'm going to try to phrase it exactly the same way. I'm going to try to pull things through the same exact articulation. And in that sense we're not only getting to the notes and the theory of it, but the actual feel. So a lot of what we do in terms of learning and feel, be it learning how to swing in jazz, or just learning how to make the music feel good, is by emulating what's out there, you know. >> Larry Applebaum: Talia was mentioning not just your accomplishments, but the awards you've received over the years. And I wonder, is recognition important to you? >> Miguel Zenon: Well I like to think about it from a perspective of it's something that's important in terms of opening doors to opportunities. I mean, I definitely feel like things like the MacArthur Fellowship and the Guggenheim Fellowship, Grammy nominations, all those things, they give myself and my music more visibility and opens doors professionally. Which makes me work more and makes my life easier. But on the other hand, like you said, I'm self-critical and I'm sort of a firm believer on being my own judge. I believe that I'm the person that's most capacitive to really accurately say what it is that I'm doing wrong and what I'm not doing well. >> Larry Applebaum: As a judge, are you forgiving? >> Miguel Zenon: Yeah, sure. I mean, it's the kind of thing -- I'm not going to be totally flagellating myself or anything over a solo. But I take recognition of these kind of awards as something that's good. But even if it was something that was negative, like even if it was a review, a negative review or a positive review, to me those things are basically at the end of the day opinions. And they will have effect, like this opinion and that opinion. But at the end of the day, I'm working sort of based on the amount of effort and the amount of work that I still need to do. I mean, I always feel that there's always something I can do better. And it's probably just the way it's going to be, and that's kind of how I do it with my work. >> Larry Applebaum: You never stop learning. >> Miguel Zenon: No. That's right. >> Larry Applebaum: So you mentioned Charlie Parker and I know how important his music is to you. If he were here with us today, what would you like to ask him or talk to him about? >> Miguel Zenon: I would probably ask him about what he's practicing. It's funny you say that, because there's this interview with Paul Desmond, who I'm sure you know. It blows me away every time I hear it, because Paul Desmond was a great saxophonist too. He was asked about his playing. And I'm thinking this is probably like late-40's, early-'50's and this music was so new that you know, to hear someone play that way is almost like someone inventing a whole new language within a period of like two years, and then that language becoming it, like what everybody wanted to play like. And then it was like the greatest thing. And still now I hear it and I'm like, "Wow, this is the greatest thing ever." You know, and on the interview he's talking to Charlie Parker about his practice routine. And it blew me away what Charlie Parker was talking about, how much he practiced. At some point he said, "I might be practicing 10-11 hours a day." But a lot of what he was practicing were things that were really basic things. You know, scales, time, just assimilating solos. So I'm always interested in how you know, musicians build their routines, you know, build their routines and build on things that are important to them, you know. So I would probably ask him something about his practice routine. >> Larry Applebaum: I'm very curious what your questions will be. And you'll have a chance to ask them in just a moment. I'll ask one last one, and that is, as a musician, composer, arranger, educator, as a father, how do you measure success? >> Miguel Zenon: It's hard to say. I mean, I think probably the way I would do it -- and this is kind of how I think about this in general. When I started playing this music and when I decided that I wanted to be a musician for a living, I did it because my goal was to be able to play with people I admired, you know, my heroes. And I've gotten to do that a bunch over the years and I feel you know very lucky about that. I never really thought of music as a way of creating a platform for myself as an individual artist. I never thought that someday I'm going to have my own band and my own records. I mean, eventually that happened and it's been a great experience too. But I usually measure in terms of our very small, little jazz world here. I measure musicians sort of in terms of who they play with, you know. And if I see a musician who's playing with a whole bunch of different people, I think, "Okay, so that guy must be good, you know." He's respected in the community and he's first call for these different projects. So they must have something that all these musicians from different places are attracted to. So I feel that as I get to play with more musicians and I get to be more experienced, I feel good about that. You know, more than anything else, that I have that kind of connection to the community. >> Larry Applebaum: That's it. You must be good. [ Laughter ] Okay, again, think about your questions. But you know, I couldn't help but notice you have your horn with you. Yes, right behind the chair. I wonder if you could be persuaded to let that bad boy out of the case. [ Applause ] >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: Questions first? >> Miguel Zenon: Maybe we do the questions first. >> AL: Okay. Who has a question? There's one right there. >> I had a question for all of us amateur musicians about how you encourage people to be willing to take the chance to get up and play in front of other people. >> Miguel Zenon: Well you know, that takes some courage for sure, especially if you're just getting started and if you haven't had the experience. But I feel like it's like anything, you know? As you gain confidence in what you're doing, and that was my experience, you know, the more I practiced and the more I felt that I could do something with a certain amount of comfort. It became a little easier to get up on stage and play in front of people. Of course, the first time I did it I was terrified. And the second time a little less, and the third time a little less. And it kind of goes like that. I've been doing this for a long time. Still, once in a while you know, I'll get a little something. Maybe it's a family member in the audience or someone I admire, so I'm getting really jitterish. But after a while if you do it enough, it just becomes routine. It just becomes something that you're comfortable with. >> AL: Who else? There is one right there. >> Thank you so much for being here. [Inaudible]. I first saw you 20 years ago performing at -- [ Inaudible ] >> Miguel Zenon: So David and I, we actually went to the same performing arts school in Puerto Rico, the [Spanish name]. He went there -- he's about eight years older than I am. So he was there way before me and I didn't meet him at the school of course. But we went through the same courses. We had the same saxophone teacher and everything, you know. And of course when I was at the school, when I was finishing up and getting into jazz, he was kind of like putting out first records. So I was a great admirer of his work like when I was just getting started. Eventually once I moved to Boston I got really close with another Latin American musician, Danilo Perez. He was a pianist and composer. And Danilo sort of became a mentor in Boston. You know, I spent a lot of time with him and would go off to his house, take lessons, play with him a bunch. So I met David through Danilo while I was still in Boston. I still remember when I met him. We met at this place for dinner and then David was playing that night. I came over and I sat in and played with him and it was cool. And then eventually when I started figuring out what to do after school, after Berkeley, some folks suggested, "You should go to New York." I thought, "Okay, maybe I'll try that." I had family in New York so that made sense at the time. I was going to school in New York. And when I was in New York, the first thing I did was I called up David. You know, I was like, "I'm in New York. Remember we met in Boston?" And David did basically exactly the same thing that Danilo did, you know. I would go over to his house and he became a mentor. I would go over to his house like, "Man, I'm kind of playing on this tune. Do you think you hear another line?" He was like, "Maybe I hear a counter line." And I started doing that just for fun. And then it was like, "You know, we should play that at the gig tonight. Why don't you come over?" And I went and played. And we did that in Boston. It was like, "Why don't you come on tour?" I did that and started playing with him. The relationship was born out of that sort of dynamic. And just kind of going back to this idea of David and Danilo, they're very close friends and they both played together for a long time with [inaudible] and a bunch of other bands. And to me, when I started getting into jazz, they represented what I wanted to achieve, not in terms of success or anything. But I felt that as working musicians they have both been able to get to a place where they can be respected as jazz musicians, you know, authentic jazz musicians. But at the same time, represent their culture, right? In the case of David and Danilo, they are both very connected to you know, the music of the country and trying to represent that in their music. And I related to that idea very deeply, you know. And I related to the idea of making music that wasn't just sound. Sort of like instrumental dance music kind of thing, but that had more of a balance between what I consider to be essential elements of jazz, interaction, you know, this idea of taking risk and letting things kind of flow. And combining that with folklore and all this. And I felt the music at the time represented that, and that was kind of what I was trying to achieve. So it was really nice to cross paths with them and eventually you know, become part of their little circle in a way. So that was really great. Thank you. >> Larry Applebaum: Who else has a question? We have a question in the front row. You have a question? Do you want to come ask? >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: It can be Spanish. [ Speaking Spanish ] Great question. >> Miguel Zenon: She asks who made the decision that I was going to become a decision. So I made that decision myself, but it was a hard decision because at first I wasn't sure. I was like, "Maybe I should do something else." I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to study science and math. You know, I was interested in that as well. But I really loved music and I really loved to play. So I said, "I'm going to give it a try and see how it goes. And then if after a couple years it doesn't feel good, maybe I'll go to the other thing." It felt good after a couple years, so I said, "Okay, I'll give it a couple more years." And then eventually I just kept going and it became what I do. Okay? >> Larry Applebaum: Can you say what you love about music? >> Miguel Zenon: You know, when I first started playing music and not necessarily playing jazz, but playing an instrument, I liked the fact that it felt like a game to me. I remember when I was playing music, I was also playing a lot of basketball at the time. And it felt the same way to me. It was almost like something you do for fun. You can interact with others. You can portray your personality, be competitive and do things to make yourself better. And even though I've been doing it for a long time, I still try to find that sort of like childlike mentality where you just do it because it's fun and playful. >> Larry Applebaum: Beautiful. Who else has a question? No? Well maybe now's the time. >> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: We want to hear him. >> Larry Applebaum: Yeah. Let's see what happens. >> Miguel Zenon: Let me see. [ Applause ] [ Playing jazz music ] [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at LOC.gov.