Being the Crossroads of the World and the land bridge between North and South America, one might expect that Panama would have a jazz scene to match the reputation. Indeed, it’s as one would expect.
However, despite the international renown that Panamanian jazzman Danilo Pérez has achieved and the world-class syncopations of a number of his compatriots --- a few working abroad but most hardly known outside of Panama --- jazz isn’t taken very seriously by governmental bodies like the National Institute of Culture (INAC), the Panamanian Tourism Institute (IPAT) or the various carnival committees, the private broadcast media generally ignore the genre and most of our best musicians live hand-to-mouth. Yes, there’s a club scene (which doesn’t pay very well), and we did have our first international festival last year, but jazz lives a hardscrabble existence here.
One factor that keeps the scene going is the private jazz party, something that has recently become popular in a multinational social segment in which expats from jazz’s great North American and South American bastions are prominent.
And so it was on the evening of January 17 at the Paitilla home of Nancy Cuthbert and Dave Stelljes, where a crowd in which the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Panama were represented appreciated a jam session that included 92-year-old pianist Víctor Boa, Eduardo Irving on sax and flute, trumpeter Daniel Martínez, Fred Anglin on the electric bass and conga drummer/percussionist Ventura.
This was a pick-up band jamming together for the night. Some of these guys have regular gigs at bars, clubs or restaurants around town, but not as a group, and none of them really have enough musical work.
So what do Panama’s accomplished jazz musicians who don’t generally play together play when they come together like this. The standards, of course.
But WHICH standards?
That’s where Panama’s position as a jazz crossroads becomes most apparent. About half of the tunes were North American standards, as in “Take the A Train,” and the other half or so were South American classics, as in “The Girl from Ipanema.” Yes, it’s a fusion that was explored decades ago by the likes of Stan Getz and Dizzie Gillespie, but here and now it’s canon, not experimental.
It was a very good time, a night of worthy art. One of the highlights was a vocal rendition of Gershwin’s “Summertime” by male soprano Fernando Bustos, who more often sings in the operatic and baroque genres and who’s heading out for Argentina shortly.
Maybe a bit more Argentine hybridization is what the local jazz scene need at the moment. Of course this interchange is long-standing, even if to Panama’s great shame the Balboa Theater wasn’t even close to full when Gato Barbieri played there a few years back. But during Slick Willie’s tenure in the White House he sent regular jazz missions from the United States to Panama and other Latin American countries and that bit of American cultural influence in the region has all but dried up during Dubya’s tenure. So maybe the time has come to look mostly south for cultural dialogue.
Meanwhile, whole cruise ships full of Germans are calling at Panama and young European backpackers are frequently seen in the capital’s Internet cafes, and from the other direction we recently had a Japanese jazz mission come through town. Given these developments, and where Panama is and who Panamanians are, don’t be surprised if our jazz scene starts to look east across the Atlantic and west across the Pacific more often. And maybe someone with the resources and motivation to promote the excellent in Panamanian culture will send folks like the men who played at Dave and Nancy’s house on tour to Western Europe, Eastern Asia and the even farther corners of the planet, with the self-interested but worthy expectation that this, in turn, will boost this country’s tourism industry.
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