Since its founding in 1945, the Paradise Theater in Río Piedras was destined to become a legendary space. The advertisements of the time presented it as a place “worthy of the progress and culture of our University City,” and the most recent member of Rafael Ramos Cobián’s cinema chain promised to be of a category as high as the already famous Paramount cinema. . His arrival in Río Piedras changed the landscape of local cinema and it soon became the favorite, with its impressive facilities and technological advances.
But not even its impressive opening and amenities made the Paradise survive the dramatic changes that affected the movie theater industry on the island and the urban area of Río Piedras. The Paradise closed its doors several decades later, becoming, for countless years, an abandoned and deteriorating building.
But the wind of change and improvement has given a new breath of life to the city and, in turn, to the abandoned theater. The new Paradise Cinema Theater has been rescued by citizen efforts that have committed to returning the old structure to its glory days. Among its many initiatives, the most recent involves a benefit concert in favor of Paradise with the headline presentation by the master of Puerto Rican jazz, Miguel Zenón.
As Zenón explained, his participation arose after a series of conversations with Ricardo Cobián, who is one of the organizers of the event, about the importance of Paradise.
“He told me a lot about the work that is being done there, about what is expected from the space in the near future and we thought it was a super good idea and a good cause. So we are very excited,” he said.
For the musician, the importance of Paradise is very clear and he sees it as a possible bastion from which the country’s culture can be defended.
“This is a space that is from before my time, including, eh, me, well I know the Paradise of being in Río Piedras. The space has been disabled for a long time, I have never had the opportunity to play in it or visit it. Initially, when we talked about doing the activity, we thought of doing it there, in the space, but later we reconsidered due to logistics and space and fitting-out issues, so doing it in Fine Arts. But what I can tell you is that the idea of rescuing a space like Paradise is the type of thing that opens the doors to having more accessible cultural spaces, so that these types of spaces that are so historic and so necessary are not lost,” said.
Zenón also gave his opinion on the current state of jazz in Puerto Rico. He recalled that in the beginning studying this type of music was more complex, but he is happy that currently several universities and specialized schools offer jazz as a specialization.
“I think that Puerto Rico, obviously, is the birthplace of many of the great musicians of any style of music and jazz is not far behind. I grew up and was raised in Puerto Rico. I studied at the Escuela Libre de Música and at that time there was no platform in Puerto Rico to study jazz in a formal way. “Me and many of my colleagues who were interested in jazz, we had to do it more or less on our own,” said Zenón.
“Interest has grown a lot and the platform has been amplified so that Puerto Rican musicians can continue to grow within their interest in this music. I think that talent is undeniable, what is always missing are opportunities for these musicians to continue finding spaces to grow, to express what they have to express, to experience all those kinds of things,” he continued.
Likewise, Zenón was excited about his recent nomination for a Latin Grammy for his album “El arte del bolero, vol. 2″, and talked about how his future projects are taking shape.
“The album was nominated for a Grammy, which makes us very happy, because that type of recognition always helps and also helps to spread the word in terms of what Latin American music is, the songbook, all that. So that project has us excited, not only because of the edition, but also because of the Grammy, because we have been doing many concerts with this type of repertoire. And we are already beginning to conspire, or conceptualize, what our next project is going to be. That is why it is still in its first steps,” he said.
Miguel Zenón in Concert will take place on December 27 at the Santurce Fine Arts Center (CBA) at 8:00 pm Tickets can be purchased through the CBA box office or at Ticketera.
2023-12-13 04:08:51
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