Danilo Pérez(I)

At the age of three his bandleader father gave him a set of bongos, thus beginning the musical education of young Danilo Perez. He began piano studies at the National Conservatory of Panama at the age of five. Attending the Berklee School of Music in 1985, Perez discovered his love and affinity for Jazz. An adventurous musician, Perez is noted for his blending of Panamanian folk music, African, Afro-Latin, Afro-American, and Amerindian musical elements to his arrangements and compositions--a trait cultivated in his native Panama and further developed by his work with a wide variety of American and Latin American musicians that have included 'Jon Hendricks', Paquito D'Rivera, and Wynton Marsalis to name a few. Perez was also a beneficiary of the legendary Jazz trumpeter and musical ambassador Dizzy Gillespie as he spent four years with Gillespie and his United Nations Orchestra. A growing appeal for Perez's music occurred after the release of his second album as a leader which was entitled "The Journey" (1994). Other more impressive albums soon followed with the 1998-release "PanaMonk" (a musical nod to his homeland of Panama and the noted Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk);and the 1998 album "Central Avenue". He has also been a featured performer on several occasions with Jazz at Lincoln Center. In the summer of 1998 Perez was voted "Best Artist or Band in Performance" at the first annual New York Jazz Awards. A man who wears many musical hats, Perez is a noted music educator who teaches at The New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. In true 'Gillespian' fashion, Perez stands at the forefront of artists who have successfully integrated various music forms, particularly those of Africa and the indigenous Americas, with traditional Afro-American Jazz, subsequently furthering Jazz's influence and reinforcing its natural internationality.