Juan José de la Esperanza Colón Rodríguez, born in Mao, Valverde province, on 18 December 1948, is a Dominican saxophonist, arranger, composer and writer regarded as one of the country’s foremost jazz musicians.

«Con el alma de Tavito»

In 1998 he and the pianist and arranger Manuel Tejada released «Con el alma de Tavito» on Aljibe Discos, a tribute to the Dominican saxophonist Tavito Vásquez built around tracks like «Los Saxofones», «Caña Brava» and «La Maricutana». In 2013 El Caribe and Acroarte named it No. 52 on their list of the 100 essential albums of Dominican music.

Standards and side work

Alongside his own recordings — informal home sessions of jazz standards like «Green Dolphin Street» and «The Shadow of Your Smile» — Colón has worked across the wider Dominican popular scene, including as a saxophonist backing Johnny Ventura on «Piel Canela».

Honors and a return home

The 2015 Dominican Republic Jazz Festival, at the Centro León in Santiago, opened with a tribute to Colón as one of the greatest saxophonists the Dominican Republic has produced; that same October he was named director of Bellas Artes de Santiago.

A voice for the music

Beyond performing, Colón has become a frequent commentator in the Dominican press, writing and speaking about what he sees as a crisis in the country’s musical identity and mourning the decline of merengue’s traditional defenders.

Legacy

From a saxophonist paying tribute to the teacher of his own generation to a cultural administrator in his home region, Juan Colón has spent decades arguing, on stage and in print, for the seriousness of Dominican music as an art form.