Grammy winner takes listeners to another place
His deep, accented voice grabs students' attention, but when Danilo Pérez tells his life story, he lets his fingers do the talking.
Working their way over the piano on the Wayne Shorter Quartet's most recent album, Pérez's fingers express life as he knows it -- the sights of his native Panama, the smells of ethnic food, and, of course, the sounds he grew up with.
Over the last three years, the jazz ensemble has disregarded traditional musical direction and focused solely on weaving its spontaneous art into a narration of their lives. The result, an improvisational live album titled ''Beyond the Sound Barrier," netted the group a Grammy Award on Feb. 8 for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group.
''How do you bring up the element where you come from? Just let it be natural, organic, but you have to have the opportunity to be free," said Pérez, who founded the Panama Jazz Festival three years ago in his native country, and currently lives in South Boston. ''We call it 'music with no boundaries,' because you can't rehearse the unknown. We're trying to play like it's a movie script, a celebration of life, basically. It's different. Every night, it's a new adventure."
Distancing song craft from the ''segmented way music has been dictated for years" is a goal he holds for his students at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, between which he splits his time instructing students in jazz.
But there is a greater mission to his teaching: Pérez, who arrived at Berklee as a student when he was 17 years old, has noticed that students, all too often in his opinion, use Boston as a launching pad to land jobs in New York City or Los Angeles. He hopes his recent Grammy acknowledgment for musical experimentation will inspire Boston-area students and musicians to feel they can push their creative limits while remaining here.
''I believe Boston has all the tools, especially if we stop looking out of here and just concentrate on what we have here as a city: an incredible place of education.
''We need to be creating new models of opportunity for these young cats, and I think we'll see some amazing cultural movements in the next 20 years," he said in a recent phone interview.
Although a Grammy is nothing new to Pérez -- this is his fourth -- he feels the music's untraditional nature ''really shakes the moment" and may open some eyes around the city.
''This is great for me, a Grammy award," Pérez said, ''but I've had 20 years in Boston, and this is an example of the possibilities to be made."
Plus, having another Grammy only helps in the classroom.
''Winning reflects an incredible sign of hope. One of my students said: 'Man, I am really motivated by this. Sometimes we're studying and I don't see the connection, but the fact that you have taken this path is incredible.' "
