“It’s really hard to beat the Wayne Shorter Quartet, the amazing jazz group featuring pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci, drummer Brian Blade and, of course, the legendary bandleader-saxophonist-composer himself. So why even try?”
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“That’s one of the greatest working bands in jazz, the Wayne Shorter Quartet. The group’s been playing together for 15 years. Last year, 82-year-old Wayne Shorter took a break, and the other three quarters of the group toured as a trio called Children of the Light. Now that trio is out with a new self-titled recording. Music commentator Michelle Mercer says Wayne Shorter may not be on the recording, but he’s very much present.
The first sign of this trio’s comfort with spinoff status is its name. Children of the Light is a twist on the Wayne Shorter composition “Children Of The Night.” Pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patittucci and drummer Brian Blade all entered the Wayne Shorter Quartet as bandleaders. And in most ways, the group functions as a collective. Here, on Children of the Light’s title track, the trio’s lively group improv is like a family dinner where everyone’s talking at once yet somehow, everyone’s being heard.”
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Durante 15 años Danilo Pérez, Blade y Patitucci han tocado juntos en el cuarteto de Wayne Shorter, conformando así la ‘sección rítmica’ de esta leyenda estadounidense del jazz.
Pero con Children Of the Light , el primer álbum que lanza el trío sin Shorter, Pérez, Blade y Patitucci han tomado distancia del saxo que los ha unido bajo su célebre nombre. El CD salió al mercado el 18 de septiembre y desde entonces ha venido suscitando críticas positivas en diferentes publicaciones especializadas.
For 15 years Danilo Perez and Patitucci Blade have played together in the quartet of Wayne Shorter, thus forming the ‘hythm section’ of this American jazz legend
But with Children of the Light , the first album that launched the trio without Shorter, Perez and Patitucci Blade they have taken away the saxophone that has united under its famous name. The CD was released on September 18 and has since been raising positive reviews in various publications.
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"Invoking the concept of “zero gravity”—a fearless approach to interaction and orchestration that comes right out of the Wayne Shorter playbook—Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade make their debut as a trio with profound things to say. The resulting album overflows with substance, which is no big surprise considering the abilities and accomplishments of these particular individuals (each is an experienced leader in his own right), not to mention the fact that they’ve played together for more than a decade as members of Shorter’s acclaimed quartet."
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“Looking for Light is for much of the time an essay in leafy languor and deep pile luxury, with Patitucci essaying a tersely talkative brief solo. It does sufficiently build, however, to break out in a kind of sweat. Luz del Alma is a soft, charming piano solo exercise as is Within Everything. Everything about this album breathes vintage expertise, self-assuredness and the kind of empathy that a trio who have been working together for over a decade should know.”
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It’s the long time Wayne Shorter quartet…without Shorter. On the mysteriously beautiful and wholly accessible Children Of The Light (Mack Avenue), pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade take lessons learned and apply them to an 11-track all-original hour (except for a loving remake of Shorter’s “Delores”). Although they’re all leaders in their own right, this is their first trio outing.
Co-producer Perez on acoustic mostly goes tropical for his West-African “Lumen” on which he pounds the Yamaha electric. He’s acoustic for his own “Light Echo,” named after an existing astronomy phenomenon but also meaning how Shorter’s very soul echoes through these tracks. Patitucci positively dazzles throughout on both electric and acoustic bass. His “Ballad For A Noble Man” makes great use of Sachi Patitucci’s cello. Blade’s “Within Everything” is a beautiful song crying out for lyrics not yet written.
Of course, they all masterfully improvise, but, according to promotional materials using Perez as the band spokesman, they like to call what they do “comprovise” (spontaneous composition) “with dense harmonic and melodic forms.” Perez first played with Patitucci and Blade on his groundbreaking 2000 Motherland. With the release of Children Of The Light (a take-off on Shorter’s 1961 “Children of the Night” from Mosaic by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers), their mission is to “continue the Shorter school” using the “language he created.”
As for Shorter himself, who contributed to the liner notes, he’s a robust 82, still performing, still writing and still vital.
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"Christian McBride Trio Live At The Village Vanguard is the jazz bassist’s second trio album. The album was recorded last year and released nationwide recently. For eight years running, McBride has had an annual weeklong engagement at the famed jazz club. He’s rocked the Vanguard with his quintet Inside Straight, and his Grammy-winning-big band. This time out, McBride performed with his trio drummer Ulysses Owens, and pianist Christian Sands."
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Since roughly the turn of this century, the pianist Danilo Pérez, the bassist John Patitucci and the drummer Brian Blade have been refining a sleek, ecstatic bond within the Wayne Shorter Quartet. They recently began working as a stand-alone trio, bringing an open-ended spirit of inquiry and deep reserves of collective intuition; “Children of the Light” is their debut album (Sept. 18). (They appear from Nov. 10-15 at Jazz Standard; jazzstandard.net.) Mack Avenue. (N.C.)
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wheretraveler.com
What Inspires Jazzmaster Danilo Pérez?
By: Leah Harrington
Grammy Award winner Danilo Pérez gets excited about music. The talented Panama native and Boston transplant leads Berklee College of Music's innovative and highly lauded Berklee Global Jazz Institute, which trains students to be ambassadors of jazz and to bring music to people around the world.
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"... a high level of collective improvisation." - The New York Times
Album Features 11 Original Compositions and Fresh Take on Wayne Shorter's Classic "Dolores"
Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade have been three quarters of the extraordinary Wayne Shorter Quartet for more than a decade. Since, they've also continued their individual careers as leaders of their own projects and groups. Now, on Children of the Light, they step forward as a trio for the first time with an imagination and fearlessness in their approach that defies the roles and ways of a trio in both obvious and subtle ways.
"When I gave Wayne a copy of the recording I told him: 'this is for you, Doctor. This is our gift. This is our show of love, care and gratitude for all the lessons'," says Pérez. "The compositions on this recording represent the idea of 'going beyond the music.' That's what he has taught us: to not think about music just in musical terms but as a tool for the betterment of society. It's about creating music that brings people together."
Daring and luminous, often an improbable mix of pointed, questioning turns and childlike joy, the music unfolds with mischievous unpredictability. The 11 tracks include original compositions by all three members of the trio and a fresh take on "Dolores," an old Shorter classic. Pérez, who typically plays acoustic piano, plays a Yamaha CP4 Stage electric piano on his West African-rooted piece "Lumen." Patitucci, who plays here acoustic, five and six-string electric bass, contributes three pieces, including "Ballad for a Noble Man," which features cellist Sachi Patitucci. Drummer and percussionist Blade contributes the soulful "Within Everything," perhaps the closest to a standard song in the program. It's a remarkable balancing act but even as they put their considerable talents to the service of the trio, each of the members maintains his distinct personality.
"We can 'comprovise' (spontaneous composition) with dense harmonic and melodic forms, but we can also explore the beauty of a simple harmony," says Pérez. "And you can see the care each one of us put into the songs we brought in."
The pieces themselves don't follow conventional song forms but rather suggest cinematic structures. Narratives do not always unfold linearly. Solos play out more like close-ups in the telling of the story than individual features."For us, it was like writing the soundtracks of our own lives," offers the pianist. "It was about using music to paint a scene, using the sounds to tell a story."
Children and light are two recurrent themes throughout the recording. The references to kids are not only explicit (such as the voices in Patitucci's "Milky Way") but also suggested by some of the themes, perhaps most evident in the playfulness of the motifs in the title track and "Sunburn and Mosquito" (dedicated to Carolina, one of Pérez's daughters).
"Wayne has taught us the magic of having a simple idea," says Pérez. "Like in his 'Over Shadow Hill Way' (he sings the theme). In a way, I'm using my children as good judges for melodies. If they can sing it, if something sticks with them, I feel I'm on the right track."
As for the idea of light, it is most obviously present in the song titles ("Moonlight on Congo Square," "Lumen," "Looking for Light" and "Light Echo/Dolores" to name a few) but it is also evident in the approach and the choices of open, translucent textures the trio favors.
"'Light Echo' is just an introduction I put together and it's named after a phenomenon in astronomy," explains Pérez. The light echo is analogous to an echo of sound. "It is the echo of a burst of light, like at the creation of a star, and it can go on for a long time. For us, it has to do with Wayne's light echo and our hope of passing it on. We want to explore the galaxies together, but we also want to remain human and explore the earth."
As for the playing, it doesn't take long to realize that this is not a conventional piano trio. Pérez, Patitucci and Blade first came together during the recording sessions for the Pérez's Motherland in 2000, and their work with Shorter since has fostered not only their audacity and cohesion as a trio, but also a distinct, shared language.
"As a trio, we have found a way to orchestrate things differently, we overlap in a certain way that makes it feel like there are other instruments in there," says Pérez. "One of the things I feel is so strong is how we function without Wayne, and yet he is there in spirit. As a group, we have a language we play and his notes are felt even when he's not playing."
The pianist further comments, "We didn't get together just to do a record. We've been writing music since we met, and Wayne has encouraged, supported, and guided us along the way." Pérez elaborates, "John, Brian and I have a long history, and this is not just a record for us but a commitment to continue the Shorter school. We have developed a language we call 'zero gravity,' a way of interacting, of orchestrating the music that we want to continue exploring and developing. While we were putting this record together there was no pretension, no grandiose ideas. This was simply three brothers who just wanted to keep the family together."
The very name of the recording is a play on Shorter's "Children of the Night," a piece that first appeared on Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' Mosaic in 1961.
Years ago, while they were touring, "It was John who said 'we should call it Children of the Lightand bring a little light to the world'," recalls Pérez. "You say 'thank you' to a great man like Wayne not by imitating what he does but by playing off the language he created -finding a new language in the process. Like Wayne says: 'This is the new sound of the trio. You guys are touching another dimension'."
Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade - CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT Live Blue Note Milano
Several hundred Newport school children gathered at the Casino Theatre on Bellevue Avenue to celebrate International Jazz Day and to watch a performance by jazz pianist Danilo Perez.
Perez, a Grammy Award winning musician from Panama says Jazz is a music that brings people together.
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It’s been about 30 years since jazz pianist Danilo Perez left his native Panama to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. But Perez, who performed at the Dakota jazz club Wednesday night, hasn’t forgotten where he came from.
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Wynton Marsalis and members of the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra recently visited Danilo Perez Foundation in Panama for a master class.
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Danilo with his wife, Patricia, Panama VP Isabel St. Malo and husband at the opening of the Forum of the Americas in Miami
The Panamanian Government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the framework of Cultural Diplomacy to raise the international image of Panama, has appointed Omar Alfanno and Danilo Perez as Cultural Ambassadors Ad Honoren.
The official presentation was given on January 14 at the Gala Evening of the Panama Jazz Festival, held at the National Theatre. During the meeting, the Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado, stressed the importance of having representatives from the likes of Perez and Alfanno to promote the cultural values f the Panamanian nation abroad.
The Vice Chancellor highlighted the immense contribution of these Panamanians to music, as their compositions and performances positively influence the lives of thousands of people around the world. Throughout their fruitful and extraordinary careers, they have used their recognition to benefit the children and youth of Panama through scholarships and programs that seek to train young Panamanians in music, enabling a source of income and leading to productive lives.
As cultural ambassadors, Omar Alfanno and Danilo Pérez’ honored mission will be continue to promote the image and culture of Panama for the equitable development of its people.
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ArtsATL.com: February 12, 2015
April can’t come soon enough.
During a concert by the Children of the Light on Saturday at Clayton State University, pianist Danilo Pérez said the trio — which includes drummer Brian Blade and John Patitucci on acoustic and electric bass — will head to the studio this spring for its first recording sessions.
The musicians have been playing as a unit for 15-odd years supporting Wayne Shorter, most recently on 2013’s Without A Net live recording, but this new disc would present the trio as a cohesive ensemble. Last year at the Rialto, the musicians had already proven their relationship with Shorter isn’t at all subordinate; during the enthralling performance, Pérez, Patitucci and Blade weren’t simply accompanying a music master, but were participating in an organic, collaborative music-making process.
Pérez, Patitucci and Blade easily move in lockstep. This familiarity and appreciation of common musical goals helped create a level of jazz club intimacy even in Clayton State’s Spivey Hall.
The group has only recorded one studio album with Shorter, 2003’s Algeria, though together they have logged countless hours of live shows and three live recordings. But capturing in the studio the spontaneity and the electricity the three musicians unleashed at Spivey would seem to be a difficult task.
Saturday’s concert, without the headlining presence of Shorter, was a bit more subdued, and the band was able to craft its own identity. Pérez’s aesthetic — at times classical and florid, with one graceful, curving line flowing into the next — led to pieces full of twists and turns, each of them introducing myriad changes in direction and mood. Pérez juxtaposed his buttery, pianistic passages with rhythmic ostinatos; when the music demanded it, he even played clustered jumbles of notes with his forearms and fists.
The tunes, for the most part, swapped melody for shifting vamps, and here is where Shorter’s influence became most apparent. The conceit lended a spontaneous feel to the evening — an almost jam-like presentation — that gave an unexpectedness to the tunes that is missing in a lot of modern jazz played today.
The musicians are master technicians, but flashy playing was refreshingly absent from the performance. Electric bass in hand, Patitucci could have imbued each song with a prog-ish fusion vibe, but he expertly interlaced dizzying passages of notes with a deep respect for the music. Even his keep-the-tempo background playing on acoustic bass added depth and brilliance to the music.
On the drums, Blade’s driving goal was not rhythm, but musicality; his use of dynamics and subtle shading belied the sheer amount of sound he could create. Blade doesn’t seem like an overly physical drummer, but early in the evening, a somewhat faulty snare drum stand couldn’t bear the quiet force of his drumming. Blade handled the equipment malfunction in stride, never losing a beat, even with his snare drum resting on the stage.
Patitucci delivered the most poignant tune of the evening, picking up his electric bass for “Ballad for a Nobleman.” With the song, he said a subdued but joyful good-bye to the late Atlanta Symphony Orchestra bassist Doug Sommer, a longtime friend. The touching tribute rejected mawkish sentimentality for captivating musicality, echoing the overarching theme of the evening.
The New York Times: January 18, 2015
PANAMA — In the wee hours of Friday morning, Danilo Pérez climbed onstage at his jazz club here to play a set. Mr. Pérez, the Panama-born pianist and composer who has for more than a decade been a member of Wayne Shorter’s acclaimed quartet, had already headlined shows for the Panama Jazz Festival, which he founded 12 years ago. There he had performed alongside the Puerto Rican saxophonist Miguel Zenón and his fellow Panamanian, the salsa singer Rubén Blades, and in the festival’s gala concert at the 106-year-old National Theater.
And here he was, at 1:30 a.m. Friday, sitting behind the grand piano in the intimate Danilo’s Jazz Club, the city’s only performance space dedicated exclusively to jazz, now packed with friends and visitors. He was joined by John Patitucci, the Shorter quartet bassist, and a host of international musicians and students, eager to improvise alongside the masters. Nêgah Santos, 24, a Brazilian powerhouse in denim shorts, gave her congas a workout; Samuel Batista, 24, a Panamanian in his third year at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, drew full-throated cheers with his saxophone. The jam lasted until closing time, and afterward Mr. Pérez gathered his young charges at a cocktail table to dispense encouragement and wisdom. “This kind of thing wakes you up, right?” he said, grinning.
Even in jazz, which has a long tradition of mentorship, Mr. Pérez, 49, has emerged as a singular figure. Nearly 30 years after he left his native Panama to study jazz composition at Berklee, he has made promoting musicianship in Panama — using music as a springboard, cultural unifier and teaching tool — his life’s work. In 2005, a year after he started the jazz festival with his family, he created the Danilo Pérez Foundation, a nonprofit center for music education and outreach; the festival, which draws as many as 30,000 people over its six-day run each January, provides money for the foundation. The club, which opened last February at the new American Trade Hotel, a luxe outpost of the Ace Hotel chain, is, in his view, the last piece of the puzzle.
“Having a club really helps to focus the work,” Mr. Pérez said, “to provide a space to connect with all these people who are eager to hear more music.” For musicians, a year-round place to perform is “a double blessing,” he added. He had Mr. Shorter’s sound engineer develop the acoustics with the aim of recording there, à la the Village Vanguard. “We hope that with the club, Panama becomes the capital of jazz in Latin America,” Mr. Pérez said.
Already, he has changed the lives of students, especially those from poor backgrounds, like Mr. Batista, handing them a horn and heaping on support, helping some study at Berklee or the New England Conservatory of Music, which hold auditions here during the festival week. (Mr. Pérez leads the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, splitting his time between Boston and Panama.) The conservatories send their own students, too, making for a musical cross-pollination with rising Latin artists. The festival has also been a model for other programming in Panama and South America, where jazz festivals are not as numerous as they are in Europe and the United States. A Chilean delegation visited to study this year’s edition.
“He has proven that you can be successful at it,” said Mariana Núñez Haugland, the director general of Panama’s National Institute of Culture, which sends students to the daily classes that are part of the festival. Mr. Pérez’s efforts, she added, have convinced sponsors and governments that music helps young people “be better citizens.”
Jason Olaine, director of programming and touring at Jazz at Lincoln Center, who has often booked Mr. Pérez as a performer, said his infectious energy may be well suited to link institutions with the musical street culture of Latin America. “He’s just an incredible talent and visionary,” Mr. Olaine said.
For Mr. Pérez, the connection between music and community was taught early, by his father, Danilo Sr., a bandleader and educator, he said during a tour of the foundation on Friday. It is in the former music conservatory where the young Mr. Pérez took his first piano lessons; by 12 he was a working musician. “My happiest days, I passed them here,” he said.
Run on a tight budget, the foundation took donations of instruments from colleagues like Mr. Patitucci and the Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés. Similarly, the festival is staffed by hundreds of volunteers, said Patricia Zarate, its executive director, a saxophonist and Mr. Pérez’s wife. A festival of this scope would likely cost $1 million to $3 million to produce, she said, “and we do it with less than $500,000.” The musicians are paid on a sliding scale, and backing comes from the Panamian government and sponsors like Copa Airlines.
For Mr. Batista, who picked up the saxophone as a teenager, studying at the foundation “changed everything,” he said. He earned a full scholarship to Berklee, one of only two international slots for that program annually. He double-majors in music performance and music therapy, teaches at the foundation in summer and runs auditions at the festival. “The way that they open the doors makes you feel that you need to do the same,” he said.
Though he’s comfortable with Mr. Pérez — known to many here simply as Maestro — improvising onstage with him at the club “was terrifying,” Mr. Batista said afterward. “I’m still in shock.”
It was the good kind of shock, he added. Watching him invent harmonies with Mr. Patitucci, “you realize the work never ends,” Mr. Batista said.
Chale Icaza, 37, a local professional drummer who was mentored by Mr. Pérez, sees the club as a new artistic challenge, and a responsibility. “You can’t just go into that place and play all right,” Mr. Icaza said.
The idea for the club first came up about five years ago, Mr. Pérez said, in conversations with K. C. Hardin, the developer who owns the foundation’s building. When Mr. Hardin, an American transplant here, connected with Ace Hotel, the Portland, Ore., chain known for injecting a dose of studied cool into unlikely places, the notion finally came to fruition. At American Trade, a grand 50-room hotel in what was once a derelict gang stronghold in Casco Viejo, the historic colonial district here, Danilo’s Jazz Club sits next to the hotel lobby. Mr. Pérez’s foundation is just across the street.
Ace’s management took the collaboration seriously, even hiring a researcher to delve into Panama’s roots in Afro-Cuban jazz. It was also Ace’s idea to invite WWOZ, a New Orleans jazz radio station, to live-stream the festival, which Mr. Pérez welcomed as a way to broaden the music’s following.
To worries that the hotel — among the city’s most expensive — has contributed to gentrification in Casco Viejo, Mr. Pérez said he hoped a well-heeled audience could help support the club. With an eye toward accessibility, tickets to some shows are $5.
The festival’s populist mission was clear at the daily clinics, which host about 2,000 students of all ages. On Friday, the virtuoso Cuban percussionist Pedrito Martínez held court in a sweaty classroom, below a diagram of Bach’s chorales, pounding out polyrhythms and inspiring a singalong. Then he answered questions about religion, folklore and history for a rapt audience, many of them grade-schoolers.
The closing concert on Saturday, free to the public, also drew thousands, even on a rainy day. People picnicked and danced to salsa, samba, son and jazz. Alongside his students, Mr. Pérez played piano and keyboards in an all-star jam at the end, upstaged only slightly by three kids whose horns were half their body size. When the stage show ended, another percussion jam started up on the wet grass, and people lingered into the night, not wanting the music to end.
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Jon Garelick's of the Boston Globe released his year end list of 2014's top jazz albums. AT the very top of his list is Panama 500.
Here's what Jon had to say about the album - "Pianist, composer, and Berklee prof Pérez commemorated the 500th anniversary of Balboa’s “discovery” of the Pacific Ocean on Panama’s west coast, as well as the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal, with this vibrant exploration of varied musical languages, from ancient dance rhythms to modern jazz. Deploying various ensembles, Pérez conveyed history as living memory."
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Danilo and his wife Patricia recently attended the "Forum for the Americas" hosted by Clinton Foundation. They had the pleasure of meeting President Clinton himself!
Aprovechando que hoy es 22 de noviembre 2014 día del músico , me gustaría enviar un recordatorio a todos mis colegas y artistas de todo el mundo acerca de nuestra misión en esta tierra.
"Somos los guardianes del proceso creativo que ayudaran a los seres humanos a encontrar propuestas vanguardistas de gran importancia pedagógica, artística y social con el fin de hacerle frente al reto de vivir en paz, dignidad, justicia y libertad".
Feliz día del músico
Danilo Pérez
On nov 22 2014 Musician's day I would like to sent a reminder to all my musical colleagues and artists from all around the world about our mission on this earth .
We are the Guardians of the creative process who will enable humans to find adventurous proposals of great pedagogical , artistic and social significance in order to stand up to the challenge of living in peace , dignity, justice and freedom.
Happy musicians day
Danilo Perez