Miguel Zenon - Law Years; The Music of Ornette Coleman [WEB] (2021)

The saxophonist Ornette Coleman shook up the music establishment when he pioneered free jazz, at the end of the nineteen-fifties, by discarding fixed harmony and rhythm from his improvisational concept, but he also composed some of the most beguilingly melodic pieces in jazz’s history. Miguel Zen?n, himself a commanding alto saxophonist, honors Coleman (who would have turned ninety-one this month) on this live recording by interpreting eight of the Master’s works, including the inimitable dirge “Broken Shadows,” with appropriate brio and headlong drive. Zen?n takes full advantage of the vigor and reflexive wit of his three compatriots—Demian Cabaud on bass, Jordi Rossy on drums, and Ariel Bringuez on tenor saxophone—calling to mind the quartet that Coleman established with the tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman in the late sixties. by Steve Futterman