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This year The Panama Jazz Festival, which celebrates it ninth version, is even better organized and promises to be an all around treat for not only Jazz enthusiasts but for budding Jazz virtuosos.
In case you weren’t aware the Jazz Festival, which is receiving a worldwide reputation for quality entertainment, is a two fold endeavor. The famous Jazz clinics and the concerts, both brain children of pianist Danilo Perez, will make Panama the place to be for the 16th through the 21st of January 2012. A cool way to start out the New Year!
According to a recent press release, this year The City of Knowledge – La Ciudad del Saber- on the former Ft. Clayton will be the venue for the Expo Clínicas and the different workshops offered to students of Jazz music and will be held in their Convention Center.
The concerts will again brighten our cultural horizon in the Casco Viejo in San Felipe’s Plaza Catedral as well as in The Atlapa Convention Center. We will also be happily saturated with Jazz music in the El Cangrejo District here in the Portobelo Room of The Hotel El Panamá’s “Nights of Jazz” sponsored by the Panama Jazz Festival Jazz Club. I think the organizers have done a better job this year in covering all locations as many people have commented to me that if it weren’t for their love of the music the trek or ride up to San Felipe, which in the past has had a few issues with parking and crowds, would be an event they’d pass on.
The honored guest artist this year will be none other than Carlos Garnett, a native born Panamanian from Red Tank and a formidable jazz soprano and tenor saxophonist. Garnett will be accompanied by his group from New York and also the singing duo of Teri Roiger and John Mennegon.
The rest of the lineup of musicians includes such names as John Scofield and his trio, Charlie Sepulveda from Puerto Rico, Chucho Valdés and Omara Portuondo from Cuba, Luis Bonilla and NEC from Costa Rica and also featured will be Tito Puente, Jr. with the Panama Jazz Festival Ensemble directed by Riqeña.
We think the Panama Jazz Festival is a great way of bringing a dazzling touch of class to Panama in the form of this wonderful musical art form and we encourage everyone to attend either the concerts or the clinics or both.
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