Danilo Pérez

Providencia

Price: $13.98

Product #: MAC1052

Release: August 31st, 2010

On a practical level, Pérez has been working busily to answer that question both in his native Panama and his adopted home of Boston. His annual Panama Jazz Festival has brought world-renowned musicians to the country for the last seven years, not only to perform but also to work closely with local youth. That mission is carried on yearlong by the Fundación Danilo Pérez, which offers musical and cultural education to disadvantaged young people in Panama City. He also recently co-founded Junglewood, an artistic community in the Panamanian rain forest designed to encourage eco-consciousness. In Boston, he now heads the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, which offers music students an opportunity to explore creativity, advance the social power of music, and connect music with the restoration of ecology and humanity.

Providencia, his latest CD and debut on Mack Avenue Records, is an attempt to provide a complementary musical answer to the same question. “This record is based on the idea that whatever we do has an impact in the universe,” Pérez says. “The word ‘providence,’ for me, means standing up for the future of the next generation of children.”