500 years ago the explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean. Pianist Danilo Pérez’s new album marks the anniversary and looks ahead to the centenary next year of the opening of the Panama Canal, in the three-part ‘Canal Suite’ featured on his new album Panama 500 to be released by Detroit label Mack Avenue on 7 January. This latest album's personnel features Ben Street and Adam Cruz (the trio appeared at Ronnie Scott’s last year [http://www.marlbank.net/lives/36-7]), as well as bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade, Pérez’s bandmates from the Wayne Shorter quartet, plus percussionist Roman Díaz from Cuba, Rogério Boccato from Brazil as well as Milagros Blades and Ricaurte Villarreal from Panama as well as violinist Alex Hargreaves among the line-up. Pérez this month appears at the London Jazz Festival as a member of the Wayne Shorter Quartet in a concert where the quartet is also joined by the BBC Concert Orchestra: http://www.londonjazzfestival.org.uk/events/info/wayne-shorter-quartet-and-bbc-concert-orchestra

Danilo Pérez