Danilo Perez
In reflecting on his latest CD, the lyrical and lushly orchestral Across the Crystal Sea, pianist Danilo Pérez says it was not only the biggest challenge of his career, but also one of his highlights. Arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman and produced by Tommy LiPuma, the album features a jazz trio of bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash, augmented by percussionist Luis Quintero and vocalist Cassandra Wilson singing on two tracks, as well as a full orchestra. Except for two standards given new life, the music consists of Ogerman material: an impressionistic original composition (“Another Autumn”) and five pieces based on the works of such classical composers as Manuel DeFalla, Hugo Distler, Jules Massanet, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Jean Sibelius.
“This was a big test for me,” says Pérez, the Panama-born, Boston-based pianist who has been a member of Wayne Shorter's quartet for several years. “My experience with Wayne taught me how to go to unknown places. But when it came to working with Claus, it was another kind of adventure where I was called upon to touch the lyrical side of my playing. Claus is a master of colors. As the musical director, he provided me with both a story and a landscape, and then told me, 'I want you to paint.'”
Renowned for his orchestral brilliance in working with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra, Bill Evans, George Benson, Michael Brecker and Diana Krall, among others, Ogerman is both a master storyteller and a profound teacher, says Pérez. “Claus taught me a lot, just in the way that he hears music and connects it to his life experience. He's a wonderful coach who knows how to get the best out of you.”
Ogerman returns the compliment in speaking about the arrangements he worked on for Across the Crystal Sea: “We might not have succeeded without Danilo's ease at situations which call for accommodation, although I had left a lot of room for improvisation.” Ogerman says that Pérez was the perfect pianist for this project. He knew of his work with Shorter as well as on two of his own albums, Panamonk and Motherland.
As for how this project developed, LiPuma references back to the '60s when he first got to know Ogerman. “I was familiar with Claus from the work he did with Jobim and of course the outrageously great 1965 album he did with Bill Evans and a symphony orchestra where he took classical themes and used them as vehicles for Bill to play on,” says LiPuma, who later produced several projects with Ogerman, including Benson's 1976 album Breezin' and Krall's 2001 CD, The Look of Love. “I always told Claus how much I wanted to work with him on another album.”
Pérez recalls that LiPuma approached him seven years ago about an orchestral album, which intrigued him. Meanwhile LiPuma sent Ogerman Pérez's recordings. “It took a few years, but Claus called me, told me how fantastic Danilo was and that he was starting to put some material together,” says LiPuma. “We decided on the same formula as the Bill Evans album.”
Adds Ogerman,“Tommy recommended Danilo highly, although it didn't take much to convince me.” As for the material he worked on, Ogerman says, “These charts I wrote over a period of time are based on classical themes I've known all my life and I've always wanted to record.”
Ogerman's music, based on classical compositions, include themes such as a Distler (1908-1942) piece titled “Across the Crystal Sea.” Ogerman says he's known the tune since he was 16. “Distler was a choral composer and conductor. His voicings for a cappella chorus are nothing but supreme, comparable to the choruses by Bach or by American vocals groups of the '40s and '50s and later the Bulgarian Women's Choir.”
“Claus addresses classical pieces so that they're not recreations, but platforms to do something else,” says Pérez, who notes that Ogerman suggested him to listen to the original piece performed by singers. “That's how I heard the inner voicings of the music. It was an exciting experience for me. I got the mood, the feeling; then worked in percussion-like parts that are not overpowering.”
Pérez notes that Ogerman's interpretation of a Rachmaninoff theme (titled here “If I Forget You”) was like a landscape while the DeFalla work (“The Purple Condor”) was a particular challenge because of the open bars in which he was called upon to solo-which results in a lengthy tour de force of pianism. In the case of “The Saga of Rita Joe,” based after a theme by Massanet, Pérez, who delivers another lengthy improvisational excursion, says, “It was difficult making sense of all the harmonic movement Claus put into the arrangement. It was a matter of slipping in between the harmonic movement, about which Christian said when we were finished, 'Wow, that was happening.'”
LiPuma calls McBride and Nash his “dream rhythm team” that was up to the task of working with Ogerman's material. “One of the reasons why Claus is so brilliant is because of the voicings he uses and the manner in which he writes,” says LiPuma. “The music may seem simple, but anyone who's ever played his pieces knows it's not easy. You've got to be able to do your homework to play it.”
Pérez adds that he was pleased to have the rhythm section aboard to help negotiate the musical weaves. “The three of us talked all the way through the session as we were working out how we were hearing what Claus had written,” he says. “It was a challenge for all of us.”
(Danilo and his fellow jazz musicians recorded the music in New York; the orchestra was recorded later in Los Angeles.)
As for the appearance of Wilson on vocals, both the songs she appears on-the gorgeous and dreamy “Lazy Afternoon” and the quietly joyful “(All of a Sudden) My Heart Sings”-were first takes that the band nailed. “Cassandra fit the vibe,” says Pérez. “I love her singing. She's like a character, an actress in voice.” Likewise Ogerman praises her “haunting interpretation.” He adds, “Miss Wilson is not only a ravishing beauty, but she also approached studio work like a jazz musician not like a star. It was a great privilege to work with her.”
Across the Crystal Sea is the latest chapter in Pérez's extraordinary career as a pianist and bandleader who delivers a distinctive blend of Pan-American jazz that covers the music of the Americas, folkloric and world music. He's not only impressed critics (for example, The New York Times' Ben Ratliff writing that he is “a bold example of the musicological rethinking of jazz”), but also fellow musicians. Wayne Shorter says that Pérez “has all of the attributes of a performer, conductor, impresario and purveyor of musical expression greatly needed in these uncertain times” while Herbie Hancock says that Pérez is “not afraid of anything.”
Born in Panama in 1966, Pérez started his musical studies at 3 with his bandleader/singer father, and by the age 10 was studying the European classical piano repertoire at the National Conservatory in Panama. He later went on to attend Berklee College of Music, during which time he performed with Jon Hendricks, Terence Blanchard, Claudio Roditi and Paquito D'Rivera. From 1989-92, he was a member of Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra. Since then Pérez has toured and recorded with Steve Lacy, Charlie Haden, Joe Lovano, Tom Harrell, Gary Burton, Roy Haynes, and many others.
Grammy Award winner, Pérez has led his own groups since the early '90s, recording such remarkable major label albums as his 1993 eponymous debut, The Journey (1994), Panamonk (1996), Central Avenue (1998), Motherland (2000) and …Til Then (2003). His last two CDs, Danilo Pérez Trio Live at the Jazz Showcase (2005) and Danilo Pérez Big Band's Panama Suite (2007), were both released via Artist/Share.
In 2003 Pérez founded the Panama Jazz Festival and in 2005 set up the Danilo Pérez Foundation to promote Panamanian art and culture. Currently, he serves as the Ambassador of Goodwill for UNICEF, Artistic Advisor of the Mellon Jazz Up Close series at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and faculty member of New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music in Boston.
“When the dust settles, the pianist DANILO PEREZ will be looking like one of the best things that happened to jazz around the turn of the millennium. This Panamanian musician is literate in Latin American rhythms, and so part of the wave of the recent, more culturally specific and vastly improved Latin jazz scene. But he is also, in a larger sense, defining post-Hancock, post-Jarrett mainstream jazz piano, with his harmonic knowledge and his will to make a piano trio exciting and fluid.” -- Ben Ratliff- NEW YORK TIMES
