A brilliant pianist who has combined the bebop tradition with his Panamanian heritage, African elements, and a willingness to take chances, Danilo Perez's improvisations are fascinating to watch develop. In concert, he has been known to have his quartet improvising in four different time signatures simultaneously with surprisingly coherent results, and his originals tend to develop as they go along with surprising results. Perez started playing piano in Panama at age eight and, in 1985, moved to Boston to study at Berklee. He played with Jon Hendricks (1987) and Claudio Roditi (1988), and had a longtime association with Paquito D'Rivera. Danilo Perez gigged and recorded with Dizzy Gillespie during the trumpeter's last years, and headed several sessions as a leader for Novus and Impulse, landing at GRP for 1998's Central Avenue. Several other albums followed, including 2000's Motherland. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide