Best known for his early days with Dizzy Gillespie and his recent work with Wayne Shorter, pianist/composer Danilo Perez takes you to his musical roots and heritage of Panama on this rich musical journey. The album consists of a pair of suites, “La Muralla (Glass Walls)” and “Fronterars (Borders)” with the instrumentation mixing and matching percussion (Tareq Rantisi), flute (Zarate and Faris Ishaq), drums (Roman Diaz), violin/vocals (Layth Sidiq), cello (Naseem Alatrash), folk vocals (Erini, Farayi Malek), the traditional laouto (Vasilis Kostas) and even a children’s choir. All of these come in and out of the songs and suites like suspects in an Agatha Christie mystery.
Hand percussion choir and earthy violin and voice meld with Perez’s chiming piano on “Rise From Love” with rural guitar and stories told from Central America on “Moopatia” and “Calling For The Dawn”. Defiant speeches and Mingusy piano and percussion create a table dance on “Muropatia” with Sidiq’s violin giving a sensuous bluesy sway with voices on “Al-Musifir Blues”. There are lots of vocal “oohs” and “ahs” to add to the atmosphere as on the lilting “Unknown Destination” with Perez in a classical form for “Calling For The Dawn”. The overall mood is a panoramic view of the rich cultural textures of a land best known for its canal, but hopefully to be known for its musical passions.