The St. Thomas Jazz Weekend just keeps on rolling along. Saturday night's Danilo Perez concert at Reichhold may have been far from a sell out, but it was about as good as it gets for those fortunate enough to attend.
For openers, I am an extreme bigot with regard to the Bass. Give me a big, hollow box every time with got old gut strings that plang when twanged. Electricity is meant for light bulbs and television sets. Popcorn and toast are best over the open fire, and bass fiddles beat electronic guitars every time. Saturday nite a young Puerto Rican named John Benitez made the bass fiddle come alive. He plunked, twanged, and thumped his way into the hearts of the audience; then iced the cake with the bongo. Grand and glorious.
Now that we have dealt with my prejudice, lets talk about Danilo Perez. Obviously Panama has much more than a canal. This young Latin simply would not sit still; literally. He was constantly attempting to get the audience involved in the music. While the concert could best be billed as A contemporary, Perez took us down the path of true jazz with a multitude of rhythms, styles, and tone sets with some explanation as to the method of his madness.
The third member of the trio was a Mexican drummer by the name of Antonio Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez was totally in control throughout the concert with a masterful hand at the drums providing an almost flawless accompaniment to the piano of Perez and the bass of
Benitez. Then the magic happened.
At the end of the concert, some of the audience realized; Hey, this is really good music. The clapping and shouting simply kept going and the musicians responded. In the first encore Sanchez came alive and proved his mettle as a real virtuoso of percussion. The audience loved it and Benetez responded by pushing his limit. Of course Perez came right along and took over the momentum, and we were all in for another set of most excellent interaction. The concert after the concert was well worth a second admission.
Tomorrow night is Sosa/ Santos. They are going to have to be very, very good to keep up with the flow. Then on to the big bash as Megan's Bay with BeachJam ‘99. What a weekend on St. Thomas!