Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook

Interpreting popular songs is part of the stock in trade of a jazz musician. Now, on Alma Adentro:The Puerto Rican Songbook Miguel Zenon brings that jazz tradition home - his home. Comprised of ten songs by five of the most of the most important Puerto Rican songwriters in history, Bobby Capo, Tite Curet Alonso, Pedro Flores, Rafael Hernandez, and Sylvia Rexach, who Zenon refers to as ''the George Gershwins, Cole Porters and Jerome Kerns of Puerto Rican song,'' Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook illustrates the musical and cultural impact these songs have had. Augmenting his core quartet - Luis Perdomo, piano; Hans Glawischnig, bass; and Henry Cole, drums - with a 10-piece wind ensemble, Zenon recorded the group playing in the same room, live ''to capture that certain energy.''