Golden City
Miguel Zenon
Miel Music (miguelzenon.bandcamp.com/album/golden-city)
Grammy-winning alto saxophonist, producer and composer Miguel Zenon has just released his 16th recording as leader, an epic suite inspired by the diverse culture and political evolution of San Francisco – stretching from pre-Spanish Colonialism to the contemporary tech boom of today’s Silicon Valley, commissioned by SF Jazz and the Hewlett Foundation. The creation of this historically significant project propelled Zenon into extensive research that embraced explorations into the Indigenous Mexican population of California, the infamous 1882 Gold Rush, Asian migration, prison camps filled with ethnic Japanese American citizens and more. The recording is comprised of ten interconnected movements, and Zenon’s talented line-up is superb.
First up is Sacred Land, a stirring, brass-laden tribute to the Indigenous Ohlone people, whose proud descendants are still living among us today. Diego Urcola’s trombone solo here scales the potent musical landscape, bringing to mind our ancient, shared DNA. Acts of Exclusion is an unsettling piece that disrupts the very question of human life and security. Informed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States) Zenon’s solo reflects the injustice and immorality of such an act – musically twisting in the wind above raging political forces. The heartfelt ballad, 9066, revisits the shameful incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans, two thirds of whom were U.S. citizens. Matt Mitchell’s stark piano lines in counterpoint with Chris Tordini’s facile bass encapsulate aspects of this horrific expression of xenophobia and paranoia.
The closing track, Golden is a powerful, bitter-sweet post-lude inspired by the concept of “The Golden Ratio,” and is not only a superb display of brass dynamism, but also places focus on the incomparable rhythm section of Mitchell, Tordini and Dan Weiss.
