December 11-17, 2003

music

Danilo, Dizzy and the Dream

DIZZY WORK: Kenny Barron spent four years at the piano in Gillespie's band. He plays the Kimmel on Saturday.

Jazz journeys from the Canal to the Kimmel.

by Larry Blumenfeld

On a September morning in Panama City, musicians and international press crowded a hotel conference room to promote the inaugural Panama Jazz Festival. Seated behind microphones at the long dais were, among others: Danilo Pérez, the acclaimed Panamanian-born jazz pianist who founded the event; Kenny Barron, a standard-bearer among American jazz pianists; and Regina Carter, a young violinist from Detroit who long ago forsook a classical path to pursue jazz.

After some introductory remarks, a reporter nearly leapt from her seat. "All of you keep mentioning Dizzy Gillespie," she said. "What was it about this man?"

"He was a great teacher and wonderful human being," Barron offered up.

"He was an ambassador for jazz and for culture in general," said Carter.

"He was the point of connection," added Pérez, "for a lot of individual musicians of different backgrounds. He created a unity. He tied us together. And he knew no frontiers."

Such statements reveal the inspiration for "Dreaming of Dizzy," the Kimmel Center's four-concert series dreamed up by Pérez in his capacity as artistic adviser to the Center. The series continues with a concert at the Kimmel's Perelman Theater on Sat., Dec. 13, presenting a trio led by Barron, and, as special guests, the Cuban-born saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera and the Brazilian-born trumpeter Claudio Roditi. "Dreaming of Dizzy" -- which opened with Pérez's trio and will showcase the Grammy-nominated Brazilian singer Luciana Souza in January and pianist Randy Weston's African Rhythms Trio in March -- spans the cross-cultural influences that were elemental to the music of the late, great trumpeter. Revered as a pioneer of American bebop and one of jazz's greatest trumpet virtuosi, Gillespie was one of the most articulate and outgoing proponents of jazz as a worldly form.

These days, Pérez is one of the best examples of this philosophy in action. His standout 1996 recording, Panamonk (Impulse!), featured dazzling interpretations of the compositions of Thelonious Monk -- centerpieces of any jazz player's canon -- set to traditional Panamanian rhythms. Pérez's subsequent recordings, including the recent Motherland and Till Then (both on Verve), further develop his complex mix of influences from American jazz, Panamanian roots and styles drawn from throughout the Americas.

Barron was taken with Pérez's ambitions immediately when the younger pianist arrived in New York some 20 years ago. "I knew he brought a new perspective to the scene," Barron says. "He found a way to integrate jazz into his Latin culture, and he has a unique way of infusing jazz with that culture too."

Pérez, who is 36, worked in Gillespie's band (aptly named the United Nation Orchestra) from 1989-92. Barron, now 60, did a four-year stint in Gillespie's piano chair some 25 years earlier.

So when Pérez got to Manhattan, he made a point of finding a seat near the piano at Bradley's, the now-defunct club where Barron often held court. Pérez grins broadly and widely (in a manner casually reminiscent of Gillespie's famously inviting smile, in fact) when recalling these experiences. "I spent night after night just watching his hands and listening to him play," he says of Barron, "and soaking up whatever I could. This is how a jazz musician learns, by immersing yourself in the language of a musician you admire, and who has accumulated wisdom."

Lately, Pérez has been absorbing wisdom from another elder -- saxophonist Wayne Shorter, whose poll-topping new quartet relies heavily on Pérez's contributions. And Pérez's disarmingly genial manner sometimes belies the seriousness with which he takes his role as musician and representative of culture wherever he goes. His carefully curated series for the Kimmel Center is but one expression of this commitment; Pérez, who lives in Boston, is also on the faculty of the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory. And Pérez's role as cultural officer is more than metaphor: In 2000, he was named the U.S. Cultural Ambassador for Panama; in October, Panama City Mayor Carlos Navarro presented him with the key to the city, in recognition of his efforts in mounting the country's first jazz festival.

The Panama Jazz Festival was, indeed, a powerful gift to the Panamanian people. At the free outdoor closing concert -- a seemingly endless day-into-night presentation at an open-air courtyard in the downtown historic district -- it was difficult not to bump into Panama City residents as they danced to the various rhythms. And it was impossible not to feel their intermingled senses of excitement, gratitude and pride.

"I'm going to reveal the hidden history of jazz in Panama," Pérez had whispered in my ear when I arrived in Panama City. Indeed, he did. He showcased, for instance, the talents of musicians such as saxophonist Carlos Garnett, who was an important force among Manhattan's free-jazz players in the 1970s, and trumpeter Victor Paz, whose credit can be found on dozens of Latin-jazz recordings on the famed Fania label. Both men were born and raised in Panama.

Off the performance stages, the Panama festival fostered all sorts of cross-cultural connections. One evening, Kim Thompson, the drummers in Barron's touring trio and Mayra Casales, the percussionist in Regina Carter's quintet, huddled around Ricaurte Villarreal to learn indigenous Panamanian rhythms on the traditional tambor drum.

One morning at the University of Panama, students assembled in classrooms adorned with portraits of legendary American jazz players such as Gillespie and Monk hanging alongside those of Panamanian-born stars like drummer Billy Cobham and bassist Santi Debriano.

In one room, Pérez notated part of a classical Bach composition on a blackboard. He explained how a musician's phrasing and accents could confer regional and stylistic character to any piece of music. Moments later, he and Carter played as a duet, working the same melody through several distinct approaches -- first European classical, then early jazz stride, bebop, Latin, rock and, finally, back to classical.

Next door, in a room filled to capacity, Barron sat at a piano and gave a master class, pausing after each tune to explain its derivation and stylistic components. "They received me like royalty," Barron said as he left the school's campus.

The honor is well-earned. Barron played alongside the legendary jazz drummer "Philly" Joe Jones while still a teenager, and soon thereafter joined Gillespie's band. He made his recording debut at age 18, alongside his brother, tenor saxophonist Bill Barron, and has since amassed a long and enviable discography as both leader and sideman.

Barron's latest CD, Canta Brasil (Universal France), mines his long-standing love of Brazilian music in the company of some of that nation's most freethinking jazz musicians.

At the Perelman Theater on Dec. 13, guest musicians Paquito D'Rivera and Claudio Roditi will no doubt push Barron into the far-reaching territories within which he's always felt at ease. And Barron's core trio, featuring bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Ben Riley -- both jazz masters in their own right -- represents a meeting of old friends. The 1990 recording The Only One (Reservoir) offers a good example of the brilliant interplay these three musicians developed more than a decade ago.

"When I called Ray for this date, he brought up that recording," Barron says over the phone from Zurich, where he recently performed. "I'd forgotten all about it."

Barron is reserved; he's not one to boast. In fact, in Panama, at that morning press conference, Barron tried to downplay his mastery of styles born far from his Philadelphia birthplace.

"I don't really play the claves and montunos," he said of these rhythmic building blocks of Latin music. "I play at them."

Pérez grabbed the microphone. "Don't believe him," he said. "These jazz greats -- the thing they teach you is humility."

Not to mention mastery, in any language.

The Kenny Barron Trio performs Sat., Dec. 13, 7:30 p.m., $33-$38, Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center, 260 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999.