Puerto Rico’s problems have been in the news for the past few years, and one of them is the assault on the island’s culture from drastic budget cuts. Grammy-nominated saxophonist Miguel Zenón addresses that question with an album of eight commissioned works that draw on Puerto Rico’s folklore. His drifting saxophone hovers across the rhythmic thrumming of the Chicago-based Spektral Quartet on a set of low-key chamber compositions whose formal qualities are modern but whose soul is ancient.
