Plena Lessons For The Rhythmically Challenged

This week, NPR Music is streaming the entirety of Esta Plena, the new album by saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenon. Hear the full album preview as part of our Exclusive First Listen series.

Miguel Zenon, a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition, spent the better part of last year studying plena, a folkloric music of his native Puerto Rico. He mixes it with modern jazz on Esta Plena, his new recording. Curious as I was about it, the very least I could do was take the subway to his Upper Manhattan home to pick his brain. I headed uptown on a Friday afternoon, and I brought @arodjazz with me. (He interns on The Checkout every Friday.)

During the interview, Zenon explained the roles of each of the three hand drums — the requinto, the segundo, and the seguidor — that give plena its distinctive rhythmic pattern. [Ed.: Hear the interview in full next week on The Checkout.] Then we played.

 

OK, so "played" may be an overstatement. If you think that listening to a couple of morons banging out the lamest plena ever with a MacArthur Genius has some charm, then you owe it to yourself to hear the authentic stuff.

Hector "Tito" Matos is arguably the greatest requinto player of his generation. He leads Viento de Agua, a group that plays traditional plena. Here, Matos plays and sings in the unadulterated narrative style you might find on a street corner in Villa Palmeras, the neighborhood in Santurce, Puerto Rico where he learned the music.

"Ahora Si (All Right Now)," from Viento de Agua, Materia Prima (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings).

Purchase: Smithsonian Folkways

Tito Matos also plays requinto and sings lead on half the songs on Miguel Zenon's Esta Plena. All this week, you can preview all of it, streaming on demand at NPR Music.