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 Travel & Outdoors | Destinations | January 2005 
Panama, For One Weekend, The Hub Of Jazz Universe
 The cold and snow of New England were far, far away, but this past weekend's second annual Panama Jazz Festival spoke with a strong Boston accent.
 The cold and snow of New England were far, far away, but this past weekend's second annual Panama Jazz Festival spoke with a strong Boston accent.
Start with Panamanian-born pianist and longtime Boston resident Danilo Perez. He founded the festival with the intention of exposing Panamanian talent to a larger audience and exposing Panama to top-flight North American jazz. To help achieve his goals, he invited a small group of students from New England Conservatory, where he teaches, to his homeland.
But they were hardly the only Bostonians involved. The festival kicked off last Wednesday night with an invitation-only concert at the National Theater, an antique gem in Panama City. Opening the show was a mostly female, pan-American band put together for the occasion featuring Panamanian-born Berklee graduate and current Bostonian Patricia Vlieg on vocals and guitar, NEC students Carmen Staaf and Bridget Kearney on piano and bass, Perez's wife, Patricia Zarate, on saxophone and two young South Americans.
An adventurous and audibly simpatico new trio featuring Perez, drummer Jack DeJohnette and bassist John Patitucci closed the show in stirring fashion. Before the end of their set, they raised the excitement level by bringing on Panamanian percussion master Ricaurte Villareal and eight-string guitarist Charlie Hunter.
After the show, musicians and fans crowded into Take Five, a nearby jazz club, for the first of the festival's nightly jam sessions. A band featuring Perez's salsa-singing father, Danilo Sr., soon was joined onstage by the NEC students along with NEC dean Allan Chase on saxophone and NEC graduate Peter Kenagy on trumpet. Call it proof of music's power to erase the language barrier.
Thursday night the festival proper commenced at the expansive Anayansi Theater, with a show including saxophonist Joe Lovano's sextet, featuring Bostonian Francesco Mela on drums.
The festival musicians, including the NEC contingent, spent the daylight hours on Friday giving clinics to eager music students at the University of Panama. That evening back at the Anayansi, the University's Latin big band directed by serene trumpeter Vitin Paz opened a show featuring Manhattan Transfer singer Janis Siegel.
But the night belonged to Perez, who found an enthusiastic audience for his serious but soulful jazz dynamism. While Perez's music can be cerebral and demanding, that wasn't the case when his trio was joined by Villareal and one of his students, the astonishing Milagros Guerra. Just 8 years old, she was the hand-drum equivalent of Michael Jackson singing as a boy with the Jackson 5.
The major festival event was yet to come, a free 10-hour bash held Saturday in the Cathedral Plaza in Panama City's picturesque Casco Viejo district. The crowd was visibly thrilled by the chance to see and hear hometown hero Perez in action and delighted when he was joined by the pint-sized Guerra for his encore. The friendly, largely Panamanian audience greeted the North American jazz players with equal warmth and enthusiasm.
Perez, ecstatic to see his vision become a reality, said, ``This is proof that music can build bridges between people and cultures and bring peace and love into this world.''
The good feeling prevalent throughout the event made it possible to hear truth in Perez's idealistic words. And certainly for this one weekend, Boston and Panama have never been closer.
-Larry Katz |
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