special report

Vocalist Johnaye Kendrick, of the Thelonious Monk Institute

 

Scenes from Gala Night at the Panama Jazz Festival

photos by Eric Jackson

 

Gala Night is the kickoff of the concerts part of the Panama Jazz Festival, an expensive ($150 a ticket) affair at the beautiful Teatro Nacional. A lot of acts play one number, and every year there is a combination of jazz and a non-jazz idiom, sometimes a fusion thereof. This year it was bolero, which provided the opportunity for the Jazz Festival's founder, pianist Danilo Pérez Jr., to perform with his bolero singer father, Danilo Pérez Sr.

 

Before the show, Milagros Blades practicing with

her traditional Panamanian percussion trio

 

Family ties? Despite their shared surname, Ruben and

Milagros Blades are not related, or at least not closely.

In the background is Panama City's Mayor Navarro

 

The Milagros Blades Trio

 

The Theolonioius Monk Institute of Jazz Performance's band

 

Drummer Matt Rousseau of the New England Conservatory's student jazz band

 

Bolero singer Brenda Lau

 

Bolero guitarist  and singer Cutito Larinaga

 

Bolero singer Marcela Troestch

 

Cellist Yumiko Tokomoto

 

Danilo Pérez Sr.

 

Chilean saxophonist Patricia Zarate

 

A warm-colored photo of Berklee student Jahaziel Arrocha,

who's Panamanian, blowing some very cool jazz phrases

 

A surprise added to the program --- Panama's most noted

bolero composer and performer, Omar Alfanno

 

Another surprise to end the show --- Rubén Blades singing with Danilo Pérez on the piano