On the 22nd of February, Opus Jazz Club is proud to present the Miguel Zenón Quartet. Zenón’s 10th 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.”

The Oded Tzur Quartet performs on the 24th of February at Opus Jazz Club. Coming from the Tel Aviv jazz scene of the 2000’s and a protégé of the classical saxophone master Prof. Gersh Geller, Oded Tzur’s musical background consisted of rigorous training in a number of musical styles. His curiosity for improvised music led him to discover the ancient art of Indian classical music, which has become the main focus of his work. In order to pursue the rare prospect of playing Indian music – a style heavily based on microtonality – on a western instrument such as the saxophone, Tzur dedicated about 10 years to the work of developing a new saxophone technique: “A Middle Path”, as it was later named. The technique, a result of arduous research, enables the saxophone to move between the notes and highlight specific microtones.