Passion & Commitment: The Danilo Perez Interview

Looking at his track record, you realize how natural it must have been for Danilo Perez  to have developed an early passion for music. As a child, Danilo's musician father would have friends over to play and sing, and some of them would ask Danilo to play what he had learned.

From that beginning, the Fulbright Scholar has spent his life committed to learning and teaching music. 

He is an internationally acclaimed concert pianist, composer & conductor. He is the force behind the Panama Jazz Festival, the Danilo Perez Foundation, the new Danilo's Jazz club in Panama City,  Artistic Director for the Berklee Global jazz institute , Unesco Artist for Peace and he has just released a new CD, titled, Panama 500. In my recent interview with Danilo Perez, I asked him about his passion for music.

KG - You have made it your mission to use music to unite Panama with the rest of the world. Is that a fair statement?

DP - Yes, I would say so. I think the greatest lessons about these
things was from Dizzy Gillespie.You know Dizzy taught us a lot about music. I remember, one night we were playing with Dizzy, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Heath and James Moody, and I really wanted to "stretch out", you know. So, I began to improvise and everybody loved it, and were paying me compliments, and Dizzy said, "...that's was cool, but Bud Powell already did that". He was telling me I had to come up with something new.

  

However, what I remember most was Dizzy's advice not to forget my roots and heritage, where I came from, and that music can bridge cultures. You can talk to people from different countries through the Blues and Jazz. Dizzy was the perfect example. He was the great ambassador of music.

KG - Now, you developed an early interest in music, at about age three. By age ten you were studying European Classical piano at the National Conservatory of Panama. Growing up, how much of an influence was the family on you as a child studying music?

DP -  An immense influence, especially my father. My father  is  a singer  and since I was 2 years old he would throw many records on the floor and ask his friends to ask me where was the record Pata Pata by Miriam Mekeba, and the amazing thing even without help that I could find it . Now by that time , I already had a pair of bongos, maracas, cowbells and all of that. I was singing and playing the guitar as well. 

But I think what my father did that was very special because he took music and applied it to all aspects of my life, including learning subjects in school. He was a teacher like my mother, and my house had the feeling of home schooling. And, with subjects I didn't like, mathematics, geography, and stuff like that, he would take the time to put to music. He found out that music really helped me to learn and remember. 

And now there is a lot of experimentation with music therapy that proves music actually has a profound impact on us in developing our brains, our memory, and our concentration. My father did all of that with me. So, I would say that he was the strongest influence.

KG - Now, in the mid eighties, when you were about twenty years old, you transferred from the National Conservatory of Panama and began studies at the Berklee School of Music in Massachusetts, which was founded on Jazz and popular music steeped in African traditions. What was it that pointed you in that direction? And, how did that move influence your perspective on your career?

 DP - Actually, I left earlier. If I had stayed until I was twenty my mother would never have let me go, you know, "Never Let Me Go". So, we had made a deal. I was an electronics major at that time, so she said you do music on the side. So, I went on the side and applied for a music scholarship and won a Fulbright to go to the United States, not Berklee yet. First I went to Indiana University in Pennsylvania. 

But, there was a friend in Boston that was from Panama, and he was a fantastic piano player named Jorge Carrizo. He told me, "...man, this is where you've got to be. This is where it's happening". So I applied for a scholarship to Berklee, and won the Quincy Jones Scholarship, next thing I knew, I was at Berklee. And, wow, from then on I got to meet people like, Donald Brown, who was a mentor of mine, Herb Pomeroy, Slide Hampton, Gary Burton , Claudio Roditi , and I also worked with Lee Konitz. 

And, you know, it was just fascinating. Because in Panama I was exposed to a lot of things. You see and hear no format radio sometimes, Salsa, Reggae, then Classical music, it's all in the mix. So, I grew up with a lot of no format radio, and it was very popular at that time. So, when I got to Berklee I recognized all these influences, where they were coming from. That's when I became familiar with the music of Bud Powell. I'd heard some of his stuff previously in Panama.

Berklee was a fantastic place because a lot of my student friends are the guys now. Donny McCaslin, Luciana Souza, Sam Newsome,

Roy Hargrove, and Javon Jackson. I mean a lot of people that are out there, Gene Jackson, the drummer, and William Calhoun who played with Living Color. So, Berklee was really fascinating, and is still fascinating to me.

What was the other part of your question?

KG - How did that change your perspective on you career?

DP - Ok. So, after all that experience what I really wanted was to bring that level home and expose my peers and my friends. I felt that I wanted to explore all the possibilities in Panama, so when I got to Berklee I got to see the next level. And that was one part. Then when I got to New York, I saw another level, and the level keeps going. 

But, when I left Panama I promised that whatever I did I wanted to share with my people. I always wanted to come back, and give back. Every time I have these experiences I always think about my people.

KG - Now, as you just stated, you have committed yourself to helping people. How did you develop that desire to help others?

DP - I think seeing my father. I remember one time my father was getting ready to go work and it was raining really hard. We were driving up a hill and we saw this lady whose car had broken down, and everyone was passing her by. My father did something that stuck with me. He stopped the car, got out and helped her even though it was raining, and he got wet, and even got a cold later. That was something that really stuck with me.

There was another experience one day when we were playing at home and this guy came over to fix the washing machine. Well, when finished my father gave him a carrot shredder, and he said "...play the fork" on the carrot shredder like a guiro. And, the guy did, and he was so happy. When we finished my father asked the guy how much he owed, and the guy said, "...you don't owe me anything. In fact, I should pay you". That kind of stuff was like, man, more people need to feel this way. It would change the world.

KG - After moving to America to study at the Berklee your prominence grew immensely. You began playing with cats like Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, and others. What was the most important lesson you learned from this time period in terms of developing your own style?

DP - Great question. Wynton was very crucial for me because until that point I had been playing with a lot of what we call the Jazz cats in New York. When I worked with Wynton what he did for me when we played Thelonious Monk  is made me love Thelonious Monk. And, when I felt that beat and that way of playing it connected me with my own music in Panama, for some reason. 

And of course, now I know more that there's a lot of connections like New Orleans, the north part of Latin America. He did that, he really helped me a lot. I felt that connection, and also we became friends from that point on. Just learning a lot from watching him and working with him. 

That experience helped me find my way to Panama, because I feel that beat and that New Orleans beat and a lot of those things were like, man this is so familiar. Usually Jazz at that point was always, I mean,I had a connection but there was something extra that was like diving a little farther into the essence. Actually, they nicknamed me, Senor Blues. You get a nick name when you pass the test with with Wynton. So, I was initiated by the Marsalis family. And, when they were taking the picture, A Great Day in New Orleans, I was invited to be in the picture. I also learned about the history of Jazz. A lot of Panamanians don't know that we have a lot of connections historically with Jazz. 

KG - Your 1996 Impulse release, Panamonk, is a study of, and tribute to Thelonious Monk. Now, Monk was revered for his improvisational playing and composing. Can you tell our readers how you developed your improvisational chops?

DP - I have to go back to the beginning, my father really cultivated me on the idea of playing by ear. He would play music and have me transcribing, so I grew up developing this intuition. That's what happens when your are exposed from early on, not so much to the music reading, but to the ear. Years later, I just grew up with that kind of peaking idea, you know. There was this Salsa piano player from Puerto Rico, Papo Luca, I took a lot of ideas from him. 

Later, when I got to Berklee, I met some great teachers who helped me really learn to organize my thoughts, and find my sound, through what I was doing. A great teacher named Charlie Banacos, helped organize the principles that I will keep forever to teach myself. And he talked about the three dimensions of deciding what you play, when you play, and how you play that defines somebody's character and their music. I started putting all these things together. Then one day I was listening to Herbie Hancock's, "Inventions and Dimensions", and that did it for me because I wanted to spend the rest of my life connecting all this work, and that record did it for me.

It's been a process of listening, working with every master, and learning from all of them.

KG - You fourth album, "Central Avenue", earned you a Grammy nomination for Best Album of the Year in 1998. Your world view of music was very much in evidence on that on that album, blending Blues, folk songs, Caribbean influence, and some Middle Eastern melodies.

You also included music from your native Panama in a tune called, Panama Blues, which features Panamanian folk singer, Raul Vital and his chorus of Mejorana singers from the interior of Panama. I understand that Mejorana is an improvisational style of singing. Can you tell us more about that collaboration, and the origins of their music?

DP - The Mejorana is an early instrument similar to the guitar, and what we got from the Spanish influence was the Decimas, the poetry, the improvisation, like when Charlie Parker is exchanging with Dizzy Gillespie. We have a culture here that picks a topic and improvises on it, for example about love, and they go at it in jam sessions for hours. So, they are called the Cantores of Decima. Decima has to rhyme, almost like poetry. These are our bebop jam sessions, they go back and forth with solos. It follows the similar principles.

Then we have other forms like Tamborito, Salsa, Cumbia, and others. Then, when they built the canal a lot of Jazz influence came in from America. 

KG - In addition to what you've done, you still had the desire to go further. Of course, I'm speaking about the Panama Jazz Festival, which you founded in 2003. Was that a difficult undertaking?

DP - It was very difficult because the main problem was that people said it wouldn't work here. But we have a history going back to the fifties when we had a lot of Jazz clubs. There was a strong Jazz scene here, but it disappeared. Now, the festival has been very hard but, over time, we have been able to get support from the government, the private sector and the public. It's been a labor of love, and it's been difficult, but the more resistance we get the harder we work at it.

KG - But still, wanting to do even more, in 2005 you founded the non-profit Fundacion Danilo Perez. You wanted to encourage and educate the youth, musically. So, now you have the festival, the foundation, and your own career.

What is Danilo Perez going to do next?

DP - Well, the one thing we recognized is that we needed a club here, to provide a place from musicians to play, to create new music. A place where I can play when I'm in town. 

As for the foundation, I wanted to formalize something I started years ago. I was committed to teach. Because once the students achieve their masters and come back they need a place to practice their expertise. So, the festival provides funding for the foundation, the foundation, with help from volunteers, works to bring about social change through teaching music, and now the club will provide a place for them to play when they come home.

My wife and I have had that dream. She is my partner in this, she is a music therapist, my advisor, and she is very committed. I want to leave something for the next generation coming along to change the direction of things. I want to inspire them. I want to be on the side of the team that is bringing optimism and hope. That's what Wayne Shorter said to me, he said "...how do you want the world to be". And, I said like this. Then he said, "...then write music like that". So, he was telling me I had to come up with something new.

KG -  Well, you certainly are doing that. And, we are looking forward to a full week of workshops, performances and, the great atmosphere surrounding the 2014 Panama Jazz Festival. That all begins, on Monday, January 13. and continuing through Saturday January 18^th. In addition, this year’s Jazz festival honors the 500 Anniversary of the re-discovery of the Pacific Ocean, and the 100 Anniversary of the Panama Canal.

So, we're looking forward to a great week of celebrations, and we thank you, Danilo Perez, for spending time with us.

For more info on the work of Danilo Perez go to: daniloperez.com, fundaciondaniloperez, and panamajazzfestival.com