Danilo Perez Trio

by Nate Chinen

Pianist Danilo Perez crafted several of the most satisfying programmatic albums of the past decade -- far-reaching discs that challenged preconceptions, illuminated possibilities and avoided obvious conclusions. The first of these, The Journey (Novus), was Perez’s tone-poem for an Afro-Latin diaspora; on it the pianist brilliantly intertwined a world of traditional and contemporary sounds, in service of an overarching metaphor (the journey, literally and spiritually, of a people). Not long after, he recorded Central Avenue (Impulse!), a valentine to his birthplace of Panama City, which wedded modern jazz to traditional folk styles from Argentina, Panama, Cuba and Peru. Then came Motherland (Verve) -- which took these innovations even further, achieving a kind of universality of lyric. In each of these projects, Perez somehow lassoed myriad elements and tied them together, without losing sight of either the big picture or the innumerable details.

Yet Perez’s greatest gift isn’t his conceptual vision, but an unremittingly buoyant presence at the keyboard. Ironically, the best place to hear Perez exercise this presence, in recent years, was in other groups -- most notably, the Roy Haynes Trio and the Wayne Shorter Quartet. The latter ensemble, which has a fantastic new disc out this month (Footprints Live! on Verve), places Perez’s ruminations in just the right sort of loose soil; his improvisations seem unstructured but hardly shapeless, mutable yet fully formed. Ask Perez and he’ll admit, with enthusiasm, that the experience of backing Shorter has been formative; this much was obvious during a recent trio performance at the Jazz Standard in New York. Perez, joined by bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Adam Cruz, developed his set with an unhurried ease -- as if allowing songs to will themselves into being. It helped that the sidemen shared their leader’s rhythmic ambidexterity and dynamic range. And, of course, his sense of play.

Fri., May 31, 5-8:45 p.m., Philadelphia Museum of Art, Great Stair Hall, Benjamin Franklin Parkway & 26th St., 215-763-8100. Free with museum admission.

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September 11, 2003
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