Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

Stanford Jazz Workshop and Festival (concert series) is announcing its “40th anniversary” calendar and is kicking off with Danilo Perez Trio featuring Ben Street and Adam Cruz.

I have not scrutinized the schedule close enough to answer this a posteriori but I sure hope that on tops of the $42 ticket concert Jim Nadel and dem have arranged for Danilo to teach a clinic or two.

When Danilo performed in my Cubberley Sessions in town at Cubberley Community Center (the former high school) theatre in October, 2000, his schedule permitted him to do a clinic for charter middle school students in Redwood City, thanks to Orlene Chartain and Music for Minors. For twelve years running I have delighted in recounting this event, the clinic more than the show, which of course was fantastic, and further featured Kitty Margolis as a support act.

Danilo started with two students in front of the class, a girl and a boy. One said “hello” the other said hi back. He explained that jazz is merely a conversation, like two people talking.

He built this up to literally the entire class jamming on improvised melody, on flutes, percussion, singing, rapping, clapping, the whole shebang.

What he has with Adam Cruz, his longtime percussionist and kit drummer, he broke down and projected on these young students, and believe me by the end of the hour this group of young ‘ins looked like they could someday take it on the road or record for Concord and win Grammy’s.

What kind of struck me as funny-sad, however, was when he invited someone to be a rapper. In those days, Donny McCaslin was on tenor in Danilo’s band and would spit a little of his surfer days stuff. Here in Redwood City, the eager participant somehow felt content to say “Would the real Slim Shady, please stand up, please stand up” in a loop; the kid didn’t realize yet that he too had a voice, had something to say and didn’t have to just repeat what he heard on the radio or MTV. Danilo would have gotten to that point in hour two, would there world enough and time.

I also have fond memories of visiting Chuy Varela and KCSM that week with Danilo and Luciana Souza, who was also in that amazing band at Cubberley and is returning to Palo Alto for probably the first time to be part of the Stanford series, June 29.

Here is Marianne Messina’s prophetic preview from back in the day, and then I’ll outro with a vintage Danilo bit on video.

Pan-Musical

Danilo Perez continues to bring together diverse sounds and cultures on his latest CD, ‘Motherland’

By Marianne Messina

ON HIS 1995 CD, PanaMonk, pianist Danilo Perez asserted his Panamanian roots within a tribute to Thelonius Monk. “That record had a lot of revelations for people,” Perez says proudly. “You’ve got an Israeli bass player, who isn’t supposed to play jazz or whatever; then you’ve got a woman playing who’s been in the pop world [Terri Lynne Carrington on drums]; then you’ve got this Panamanian piano player playing the music of Thelonius Monk.” Perez chuckles. “I think it broke a lot of stereotypes,” he says. “I love that about the music. Music breaks all the boundaries.”

Stepping into his new role as Panamanian cultural ambassador to the world, Perez introduced his CD, Motherland, a complex response to the historical push-pull of influences that define the Americas: Panamanian mountain singing, indigenous pan-piping, Spanish guitar, African chant–all of these are given voice. At times, Motherlandcan be moody (as in “Prayer,” written for a cousin who died of pancreatic disease), or bright (as in the piano solo of “Pan-Africa”). “There are a lot of different emotions in the record,” Perez agrees. “It’s like life for me.”

At the New England Conservatory in Boston where Perez teaches, his lessons are notoriously unconventional. For one thing, a lesson may last all day. For another, it may involve the student dancing to music he is trying to learn. “The music and the dances–especially Afro-heritage–all come together,” Perez explains. “Music has to be felt through the body; that’s basically what it is.”

Perez absorbed percussion, rhythm and melody in this direct way as a boy–from the festivals, from nature–and he often revisits his native country for inspiration. “You go there and you hear the sounds of the birds, the animals. The music comes from the earth, really. And God made it that beautiful and we can pick it up if we tune in. The birds, they’ve got melodies they’re singing. And the rivers have sounds they’re making, and the trees, the wind blowing–there’s music.” Perez suggests that thanks to recent genres like New Age, Meditational and World music, people are realizing the relationship between music and nature. “Right now it seems vague, but in 10 years,” Perez predicts, “it will be totally connected.”

edit to add: Music For Minors is meanwhile celebrating 35 years and asking people to submit their stories so I will.