DANILO PEREZ TRIO: PANAMONK / Cape May Convention Hall / Friday, Oct 23, 7:00 pm
The Story
It was 30 years ago that Panamanian pianist-composer Danilo Pérez recorded the groundbreaking album Panamonk, his Caribbean flavored paean to iconic pianist-composer Thelonious Monk.
This summer, Pérez revisits the exhilarating music of Panamonk on tour with bassist Ben Street and drummer Adam Cruz, touching down in Cape May for his first appearance at the Exit Zero Jazz Festival.
In the last three decades since that pivotal 1996 recording, Pérez released 12 albums as a leader that blended jazz with West African rhythms, European impressionism, Latin American folk music and his own Panamanian roots. A recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award in 2021, Pérez is also well known for having been part of the Wayne Shorter Quartet (alongside bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade) from 2000 to 2018, when Shorter retired from touring due to health issues.
Born in Panama in 1965, Pérez started his musical studies when he was three years old with his father, a bandleader and singer. By age 10, he was studying the European classical piano repertoire at the National Conservatory in Panama. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in electronics in Panama, he studied jazz composition at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. Upon graduating, he toured and recorded with Dizzy Gillespie United Nations Orchestra from 1989-1992. There followed stints with Jack DeJohnette, Steve Lacy, Lee Konitz, Charlie Haden, Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano, Tito Puente, Wynton Marsalis, Tom Harrell, Gary Burton and Roy Haynes. A collaboration between Pérez and prolific composer-arranger Claus Ogerman resulted in the acclaimed 2008 album, Across The Crystal Sea, which was praised by The Guardian as, “So ultra-smooth it achieves something like a state of grace.”
As a composer, Pérez has been commissioned by The Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Chicago Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Banff Centre and the Royal Academy of Music Toronto. A former Goodwill Ambassador to UNICEF, he currently serves as UNESCO Artist for Peace as well as Cultural Ambassador to the Republic of Panama. Pérez is also founder and Artistic Director of the Panama Jazz Festival and the Berklee Global Jazz Institute in Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
The Sound
While Panamonk contains several Pérez originals alongside covers of Monk’s “Bright Mississippi,” “Think of One,” “Evidence” and “Monk’s Mood,” his use of space and quirky dissonances throughout are an obvious tip of the hat to High Priest of Bop. Hear why Downbeat magazine called it “one of the most important piano albums in the history of jazz.”
