The Panama Jazz Festival is a week-long music extravaganza, alluring 500,000 jazz aficionados to Panama City every January. Star-studded lineups showcased dozens of big names like Kenny Barron, Terri Lyne Carrington, Rubén Blades, Billy Cobham, Nnenna Freelon, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Joe Lovano, Stanley Jordan, Ellis Marsalis Jr., Dianne Reeves, John Patitucci, Wayne Shorter, Mike Stern, Esperanza Spalding, Chucho Valdés, Lizz Wright, and Randy Weston.
The event program highlights an array of master classes by renowned artists from Berklee College of Music, Berklee Global Jazz Institute, the New England Conservatory, and many other music conservatories, academies, and foundations from across the globe. Famed lecturers bring jazz education to the students of the Republic of Panama, Latin America, and beyond. Some masters of jazz who visited the event included Kenny Barron, Ran Blake, Brian Blade, Terri Lyne Carrington, Santi Debriano, Regina Carter, Jack DeJohnette, Tia Fuller, Nnenna Freelon, Eddie Gómez, Charlie Hunter, Craig Handy, Stanley Jordan, John Patitucci, Joe Lovano, Marco Pignataro, David Sanchez, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Wayne Shorter, Ben Street, Janis Siegel, Steve Turre, Randy Weston, and Chucho Valdés.
The Panama Jazz Festival was founded in 2003 by Danilo Pérez, an honored pianist and Grammy winner, who aimed at improving people's lives through riveting music. The event runs strong thanks to its Executive Director, managing an impressively huge team of 70 coordinators, 200 collaborators, 300 artists, and 500 volunteers.
More information about the festival is provided on the event's official website and Facebook. Find the links in the External Resources below. Also, you may want to reserve your comfortable stay nearby using the accommodations map.
