Consider music as the constantly evolving sum of mathematical languages that via sound express a rather full range of that which is human, and for that matter that which is natural – birds sing too – before you get into the qualities of its genres. Like the spoken and written languages by which people communicate thoughts, some live, some are dead and a few are or have been wildly successful. Consider a couple of musical languages and a written / spoken one that have become well nigh universal. English, at its base a Germanic language from the British Isles with many Celtic, Nordic and Romance influences in its early formative phases, is famous for its ability to pick up and incorporate words, phrases and ideas from wherever it goes and whatever idioms with which it interacts. We can argue about whether English is branching off into distinct languages like Aramaic and Latin did, or whether modern telecommunications — particularly of music – are unifying its dialects. A similar quality is evident in music. The US-identified but now universal jazz famously incorporates music from other genres. That branch of the European classical tradition most identified as Russian but also universal, Russian classical, picks up folklore from many traditions in the changing sphere of Russia’s cultural contacts. Here, jazz singer Dianne Reeves, who will be singing at the 2020 Panama Jazz Festival, covers Bob Marley. She irie.
The 2020 Panama Jazz Festival
Jan. 13-18, ATLAPA & the City of Knowledge
Dedicated to and featuring saxophonist Reggie Johnson
With
Dianne Reeves
Danilo Pérez
Patricia Zarate de Pérez with Lucía Pulido, Ben Street & Adam Cruz
Isaac Delgado
Ravi Coltrane
John Patitucci
Terri Lyne Carrington
Cyrus Chestnut
David Sánchez
Detroit All Stars
Las Hijas del Jazz
Josué Ashby’s C-3
Colectivo Cuba – Panamá
Fundación Armonía Colectiva
Quinteto de Orion Lion
Niki Campbell & Masuco
Kevin Harris
Guillermo Nojechowicz
et al
Understand something about the Panama Jazz Festivals: yes, they are wonderful concerts that pump up Panama’s tourist trade for a week. However, Danilo Pérez is also an educator by trade and a teacher’s son. In addition to being a musician and married to Danilo, Patricia Zarate de Pérez is also a music therapist by trade. These festivals are huge educational events.
Are you a healer, interested in knowing how music might mend the injured, diseased or deformed neural pathways of your patients? Then you, as well as more specific music therapists, might be interested in the concurrent 8th Latin America Music Therapy Symposium at the City of Knowledge.
Are you a young musician, or an adult music teacher? There are workshops and seminars at the City of Knowledge to help you improve your craft.
Are you a young person with prodigious talent that would surely grow with a top-notch education? The Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory will be auditioning for potential students.
There will also be educators from Purdue University, the New York Jazz Academy, Crossroads High School in California, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, Newton South High School and the Shea Welsh Institute of Jazz.
If you are young and if you are talented enough, you might just impress someone at the Panama Jazz Festival enough to get a scholarship. If you do not fit that description but know a young musician who does, you might want to deliver the word about the festival. It can be a life changer.
See, all the cool concerts are really the lesser part of a Panama Jazz Festival. Go to the jazz festival’s website for more information about the associated educational activities of that week.
These links are interactive — click on the boxes
