We are still glowing after our debut at Hyde Park Jazz, performing Miguel Zenón's "Yo Soy La Tradición" to an enthusiastic and packed house! Miguel's eight-movement suite, steeped in traditional music from his native Puerto Rico, is deceptively challenging in its rhythmic and harmonic complexity...and when you're on stage performing with the composer blowing solos that can melt steel...well, it was a thrill ride in every sense of the term.

You may have seen Howard Reich's review in the Chicago Tribune, in which he boldly states that Miguel should submit this piece for Pulitzer consideration. All we can say is, we concur with Howard. It is a riveting piece that curves through blistering virtuosity and elegant lyricism with total ease.

One unexpected highlight of the show was being approached after we left the stage by artist Lewis Achenbach, founder of the Jazz Occurrence™ project. Lewis draws in real-time during performances, and we were really taken by his kinetic chalk renditions of our quintet. We thought you might like to take a peek: