Miguel Zenón的新专辑《Típico》首先是对他长期合作的四重奏的庆祝。他过去几张专辑通常会在核心乐队的基础上加入更多的乐器演奏者，因为Zenón一直向外扩展，探索他波多黎各文化遗产的各个方面。而这张新专辑则显得更加亲密。它的焦点更紧密地聚焦于家庭与个人生活，表达了Zenón个人和职业生活的影响，同时更专注于他乐队独特之处。 “在写这些音乐时，我在思考这个乐队和乐队成员对我意味着什么，”他解释道，“我一直回到我们如何发展出一种共同的语言，这种语言使我们作为一个乐队有了明确的身份。” 这种语言已经发展了十多年。钢琴家Luis Perdomo和贝斯手Hans Glawischnig自千禧年之初起就一直与Zenón合作；鼓手Henry Cole则于2005年加入了乐队。他们的音乐语言完全流利地表达出现代爵士，具备所有的乐器技巧、节奏与和声复杂性。但他们共同创造的方言却是独特的。 “‘Típico’指的是某个地区或某个群体的传统或风格，”Zenón表示，“或者是某种可以与特定群体相关联的东西。在写这张专辑时，我想到了能够代表我们和这支乐队的音乐。” Zenón提到，专辑的最后三首曲子都是围绕着某个乐队成员以前演奏过的独奏或标志性的节奏线创作的。“我在这三首作品上的创作方法更系统化。但整张专辑本质上是要表现乐队的声音——我们乐队的声音。” 专辑以《Academia》开篇，这首曲子受到Zenón在新英格兰音乐学院（New England Conservatory）教授爵士课程的启发。“在NEC教书的一大好处是，我可以为每个私人学生量身定制课程，依据他们的需求和我认为他们需要加强的部分。因此，我总是在不断想出新的练习，以保持我们的互动有趣且具有挑战性。这首作品围绕着我与一些最近的学生在学校开发的各种和声与节奏练习展开。” 第二首曲子《Cantor》是对Zenón的朋友和常年合作伙伴Guillermo Klein的致敬。“Guillermo的音乐有非常个人化的声音，独一无二。通过这首曲子，我想传达一些我认为他作为作曲家最有趣的特点，比如他旋律的抒情特质和作品中的细腻和声变化。他还有一种非常独特的组织3/4拍子的方式，将它分解成三小节的7/8拍和一小节的3/8拍。作品的最后部分稍微触及了这一点，算是我向这位伟大的朋友和音乐家致敬的一种方式。” 第三和第四首曲子则源自Zenón对某首歌曲如何具备民间风格的思考。《Ciclo》强调旋律和节奏，Zenón采取了一种本应听起来非常民间化的旋律——和声上稍显简单，并且划定了非常具体的节拍，围绕它建立了一个复杂的延展循环，使用了较小的、交错的节奏单元。 《Típico》则在和声层面上接近其民间风格的目标。“在拉丁美洲，尤其是加勒比海地区的音乐中，有一种非常常见的和声进行，通常围绕小调，先向下滑行，走‘下属小调——主音小调——属音——主音小调’。这种和声进行非常简单，但又极为独特和有效。我总是很敏感于这种和声进行，因为我总在寻找那些能作为音乐连接线索的东西，它们让我觉得来自不同国家和文化表达的音乐某种程度上是相通的，来自相同的元素组合。我围绕这种和声进行创作了这首作品，并以‘Típico’命名，表达这种泛美洲的理念。” 《Sangre Di Me Sangre》是四重奏已演奏一段时间的曲子，是对Zenón四岁女儿Elena的情感致敬，这首曲子在她一岁生日前创作。“我和她坐在公园里，”Zenón回忆道，“她在玩耍，我坐下来在记事本上写下了这首歌。”Zenón首先为这首曲子写了歌词，然后为四重奏编排，其中Glawischnig的贝斯在一个与Perdomo齐奏的轻快开头旋律中非常突出，接着是他用独奏表现出的歌唱性。 Glawischnig在《Corteza》中也有重要表现，这首曲子的旋律来自Zenón对他在2009年专辑《Esta Plena》中开场曲《Calle Calma》贝斯独奏的转录。它同样具有抒情特质，Zenón和Perdomo的旋律独奏引导着曲目进入最后的快速主题重现。 Perdomo的独奏《Entre Las Raíces》（“在根源之间”）更加火热，突显了钢琴家音乐个性的两个关键方面。Zenón和Perdomo共同演绎的复杂旋律，最初源自Perdomo在他专辑《Awareness》中的独奏《Street View: Biker》。但这首改编曲以Perdomo自由狂野的演奏开篇，而Zenón的高音萨克斯独奏则呈现出他自由的一面，更接近奥内特·科尔曼或阿尔伯特·艾勒的风格。 Zenón说道：“这首作品在即兴部分的处理非常自由。Luis总是提到他小时候在加拉加斯听Bud Powell和Cecil Taylor的同时成长，他的爵士音乐总是有一只脚踏在更自由、前卫的爵士领域。当你听到他在这首曲子里的演奏时，你能感觉到他完全处于自己的元素之中。” Cole在《Entre Las Raíces》中的演奏同样充满自由，但他在自己的作品《Las Ramas》（“树枝”）中的表现则更具纪律性。“我围绕着他这几年一直在发展并经常演奏的一个节奏结构写了这首曲子，”Zenón说道，“这首曲子非常难演奏——几乎是为鼓手量身定做的一首练习。我知道他为此付出了很多努力，尽管这个创意最初来源于他，但他付出了巨大的努力让它更精确、更干净，在这首曲子中他的表现真是惊人。” 最后三首曲子命名为树木的不同部分，这并非偶然。“我在想这支乐队就像一棵树，”Zenón承认，“而我则是观察者。我的确也是其中的一部分，但更多的是观察这些了不起的音乐家，看到他们如何一起形成这个活生生的有机体。” Zenón通过这个隐喻展现了他对乐队的深刻理解。专辑《Típico》的聚光灯照亮了他四重奏的音乐是如何始终充满生命力的，同时也在不断地进化和成长。 Miguel Zenón’s new album, Típico, is above all a celebration of his longstanding quartet. His past several releases have generally fleshed out that core unit with additional instrumentalists as Zenón has looked outward to explore various aspects of his Puerto Rican heritage. This new album feels more intimate. Its focus stays closer to home, with nods to Zenón’s own personal and professional life as it zeroes in on what makes his band unique. “I was thinking about what this band and the guys in the band mean to me as I was writing the music,” he explains. “I kept going back to this idea of us developing this common language that identifies us as a band.” That language has been developing for more than a decade. Pianist Luis Perdomo and bassist Hans Glawischnig have been with Zenón since the turn of the millennium; Henry Cole joined the band in 2005. Their language is thoroughly fluent modern jazz, with all the instrumental prowess and rhythmic and harmonic complexity that that implies. But the dialect they’ve created together through the years is distinctive. “‘Típico’ refers to something that’s customary to a region or a group of people,” Zenón says. “Or something that can be related to a specific group of people. And when I was writing the music, I was thinking about music that identified us and this band.” Each of the album’s final three tracks, Zenón notes, was composed around a solo or signature rhythmic line that one of the band members had played before. “My approach was more systematic on those three compositions specifically. But the whole record essentially is about representing the sound of the band. The sound of our band.” The album opens with “Academia,” a tune inspired by Zenón’s teaching at New England Conservatory, where he serves as part of the jazz faculty. “One of the great things about teaching at NEC is that I get the opportunity to create a personalized curriculum for each of my private students, depending on their needs and on what I feel they should be working on. So I find myself having to come up with new exercises constantly, in order to keep our interactions interesting and challenging. This composition is built around various harmonic and rhythmic exercises that I developed with some of my more recent students at the school.” The second track, “Cantor,” honors Zenón’s friend and frequent collaborator Guillermo Klein. “Gullermo’s music has a very personal voice, something very unique. With this piece I was trying to convey some of what I feel are his most interesting qualities as a composer, like the lyrical character of his melodies and the very nuanced harmonic movement of his pieces. He also has very particular way of organizing the 3/4 bar, which he breaks down into three bars of 7/8 and one bar of 3/8. The piece touches on this a bit towards the end, sort of as a way of tipping my hat to a great friend and musician.” The third and fourth tracks both stem from Zenón pondering what gives a particular song a folkloric feel. “Ciclo” emphasizes melody and rhythm, Zenón taking “a melody that is meant to sound very folkloric — a bit simpler harmonically and delineating a very specific beat” and building a complex extended cycle around it using smaller, interlocking rhythmic cells. “Típico” approaches its folkloric aims harmonically. “There’s a harmonic cadence that is very common in Latin American music, especially music in the Caribbean. Something that revolves around a minor key and then slides down, going ‘Subdominant Minor – Tonic Minor – Dominant – Tonic Minor.’ A very simple cadence, but one that is very unique and effective. It’s always caught my ear because I’m always on the lookout for things that serve as sort of musical connecting threads, things that makes me feel that the music from all these different countries and cultural expressions is somehow connected and coming out of the same combination of elements. I built this specific composition around this cadence, and called it “Típico” in reference to this Pan-American idea.” “Sangre Di Me Sangre” is a tune the quartet has been playing for a while now, a balladic tribute to Zenón’s 4-year-old daughter, Elena, written before her first birthday. “I was sitting in this park with her,” he recalls. “She was playing around and I sat down and sketched out the song on my notepad.” Zenón wrote the piece first with lyrics, then orchestrated it for the quartet, featuring Glawischnig’s bass both on a sprightly introductory melody played in unison with Perdomo and on a solo meant to convey a singing quality. Glawischnig is also featured on “Corteza,” its melody derived from Zenón’s transcription of his bass solo opening the track “Calle Calma” on the 2009 Zenón album Esta Plena. It, too, has a balladic feel, with lyrical solos from Zenón and Perdomo leading to a closing uptempo restatement of the theme. The Perdomo feature “Entre Las Raíces” (“Amongst the Roots”) is more fiery, emphasizing two key facets of the pianist’s musical personality. The intricate melody he and Zenón whip through together was transcribed from a Perdomo solo on “Street View: Biker,” the opening track on Perdomo’s album Awareness. But this arrangement opens with Perdomo playing wild and free, and Zenón’s alto solo when it comes reveals a free side of his own, veering more toward Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler. “The piece is very free in terms of the way we deal with the improvised segments,” says Zenón. “Luis always talks about listening to Bud Powell and Cecil Taylor at the same time when he was growing up in Caracas, and always having a foot in this freer, avant-gardish world of jazz. And when you hear him play on that track, it sounds that way. For that piece specifically, he really sounds like he’s 100 percent in his element.” Cole’s playing is suitably free on “Entre Las Raíces” as well, but his featured track, “Las Ramas” (“The Branches,” Cole’s own debut album having been titled “Roots Before Branches”), required more discipline. “I wrote the piece around this figure that he has been developing over the last few years and plays all the time,” says Zenón. “The piece is very difficult to play — sort of like an etude for the drums, pretty much. And I know he worked very hard on it. Even though the original idea came from him, he worked very hard on making it precise and making it clean, and really sounded amazing on this track.” It’s no accident that the final three songs are named for parts of a tree. “I was thinking of the band as a tree,” Zenón acknowledges. “And thinking of myself as the watcher. I mean, I’m part of it also. But mostly I’m observing these amazing musicians night after night, and how together they kind of make up this living organism.” Zenón is onto something with that metaphor. The spotlight cast by Típico illuminates how alive his quartet’s music has always been, while never ceasing to evolve and grow.