Music, Dino Nugent presents Panamanian traditions

Probably because the Panamanian market is so small and this country’s promoters and tiny recording industry are so avaricious, most artists who want to support themselves as full-time musicians have to be versatile enough to perform in a number of genres in various settings. Otherwise there just isn’t enough work.

There are some exceptions to the trend --- mostly a few prominent cumbia acts --- and then there is Dino Nugent, the most versatile talent of them all. On any given night you might find him directing the show tunes at one of Bruce Quinn’s Spanish-language adaptations of a London or Broadway musical, playing jazz at a local club, tickling the keyboards at one of those band leader summits known as Grupo Tuira or making more classical sounds with his piano.

On January 29 at the Goethals Memorial in Balboa, he and his friends showed off his range to a crowd assembled on the Panama Canal Administration Building Steps, as part of the Panama Canal Authority’s dry season cultural programs. On this occasion it was an ambitious presentation of “100 Years of Panamanian Music,” partly a lecture and slide show and partly a series of performances about the personalities and influences that have added up to the national music scene throughout the century of Panama’s existence as an independent republic.

No, Dino Nugent didn’t perform the whole thing himself. He did play his piano at times, but mainly he organized and directed a show that was apparently recorded on video and ought to be required viewing in this country’s schools.

Starting with some senior citizen dancers in tipico garb doing ballroom moves to a reed and woodwind chamber quartet, the show featured such things as the multi-talented Lissette Condassin singing tamboritos, Osvaldo Ayala warming up his accordion for Carnival, a discourse and demonstration of Panamanian bolero, Danilo Pérez Sr.. et al showing off Cuban musical influences with the Latin Dance Company performing the associated choreography, a number of balladeers and the last performance by rock band Son Miserables. THEN Dino Nugent got the spotlight as a performer, playing a medley of jazz riffs by Danilo Pérez, the son.

Following Dino’s performance the concert turned to West Indian influences, with Leslie George singing not only the bilingual calypsos for which he is best known, but also some very good bolero and gospel numbers. (This reviewer is told that George is also a good opera tenor, but has never heard him in that genre.) Then Panama’s older black culture, that of the slaves who were imported to the isthmus by the Spaniards and in some cases ran away to found Cimarron villages in the jungle based upon West African models, was displayed through congo dancing.

Luis Arteaga then performed music that the canal authority and the Panamanian people find acceptable but which the Moscoso administration has tried in a number of ways to suppress: a medley of Rubén Blades songs and a tune by Rómulo Castro.

The night ended with most of the evening’s performers coming back onstage to sing “Parte de la Historia.” Indeed. Credit Nugent with a brilliant exposition on Panamanian musical history, and the Panama Canal Authority with the excellent taste to put it onstage.

Also in this section:
Cool Internet sites
Books: Guarding the Crossroads
Music: Valeria Ovando at Ta'Contento
TV: Confrontación
A century of Panamanian music on the Admin Building steps

review

Nugent reviews a century of our music