The Boquete Jazz & Blues Festival 2012 line-up
The line-up for the 2013 festival will be announced in the fall of this year
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Mitch Woods is a master of the 88's, hammering out boogie-woogie and jump blues like nobody else. With his band the 'Rocket 88' he has traveled widely to festivals in the US, Europe and Japan,and is featured regularly on the Legendary Rhythm&Blues Cruise. His 2011 show at the famous New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival got rave reviews which is not an easy achievement in this city famous for its abundance of musical talents. His critically acclaimed latest CD "Gumbo Blues" for which he recruited a band of famous New Orleans musicians like Herb Hardesty, Fats Domino's Sax player, also shows his love for New Orleans' music in the style of Professor Longhair. He will come to Panama for the first time.
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Winners of the "Best Swiss Blues Band" Award 2010, Andy Egert and his blues band is one of the most appearing live-bands of Switzerland and has got a high reputation during the last 20 years. Presenting blues at its best and in the tradition of their great heroes Freddie King, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Alvin Lee, Johnny Winter, Robert Johnson and many others. The powerful blues and the dynamic live show of the band has got great reviews, also on same stages with Johnny Winter, Stan Webb’s Chicken Shack, Steve Marriott, Bernard Allison, Eroll Dixon, Bob Stroger, Dr. Feelgood, Robert Lucas, Canned Heat, Louisiana Red, Sugar Blue and others! Andy Egert has frequently been working with award-winning Chicago bass-player Bob Stroger, and Bob will be Andy's bass player at the Boquete Jazz&Blues Festival. For both of them it will be their first visit to Panama.
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Chicago bass-player Bob Stroger won the prestigious Blues Music Award for best bass player in 2009 and 2010, and was just recently awarded the title of most outstanding blues bass player 2011 by the prestigious
'Living Blues' magazine. He is one of the few remaining old Chicago bluesmen who have seen and done it all. He has shared the stage with most of the great bluesmen like Eddie King and Otis Rush - many of them long gone - and there's hardly a place where Bob hasn't played yet. Bob has played music for 39 years and he's still loving it. True to his motto "Have Blues Will Travel" he's happy to travel to Panama and Boquete for the first time strumming his bass in Andy Egert's band. |
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Johnny Sansone was born in Orange, New Jersey. His father was a schoolteacher, and played saxophone. "I was about eight years old when I started taking saxophone lessons and understanding music," he says.
Sansone stuck with the saxophone, but was also drawn to the harmonica and guitar. Although Sansone released several records on King Snake Records it wasnt until he released "Crescent City Moon" on Rounder/Bullseye Blues when he began winning numerous Awards in the Crescent City. He played and occasionally appeared on other Artist 's recordings which included THE VOICE OF THE WETLANDS ALLSTARS a band he joined that featured the who's who in New Orleans and Louisiana music. Tab Benoit, Dr John, Cyril Neville, Anders Osborne, Waylon Thibodeaux, George Porter Jr., Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, and Johnny Vidacovich formed the Voice of the Wetlands to bring attention to coastal erosion issues that plague the Gulf Coast. Sansone has established himself as a practitioner of hardcore wrecking-ball power Chicago blues, with his massive harmonica tone recalling Windy City giants Big Walter and Little Walter. Guitar virtuoso Ronnie Earl tapped Sansone as the frontman for his band the Broadcasters for a stretch in the late '80s, where the pair backed giants Jimmy Rogers, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Hubert Sumlin, and Pinetop Perkins. |
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Ron Hacker has been singing and playing the blues in the San Francisco Bay area for more than 40 years. He doesn't just play the blues, he has been living the blues all his life. After teaching himself to play guitar, Ron met the late Yank_Rachell, partner of Sleepy John Estes. Yank trained Ron on the finer points of Delta Blues, and they became life-long friends in the process.His style may best be described as 'low down and dirty' southern style blues. Ron has played every major festival in Northern California, including the Monterey Jazz Festival, the San Francisco Blues Festival, the Marin County Blues Festival and the Long Beach Blues Festival. Ron has also toured extensively in Europe playing major festivals in Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Germany, and Norway.
Ron will come to Boquete as a solo artist. It will be his first visit to Panama. |
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Carlos Ubarte is one of Panama’s most sought after saxophonists, whose achievements include a Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Music along with several recording projects, Carlos Ubarte has shared the stage with Basilio, Danny Rivera, Ismael Rivera Jr, Luigi Texidor, Viti Ruíz, Charlie Zaa, Raúl Marrero, Tito Allen, Sara Knapp, Cyntia Brown Franklin, Víctor “Vitín” Paz, Pedro Suarez Vértiz, El Rooky, Rubén Blades, Salsa Kids, Carlos Garnett, Danilo Pérez, Carlos El Grande, Charlie Cardona, Pedro Arroyo, Wichie Camacho, Charlie Sepúlveda, Mauricio Silva, Lalo Rodríguez, Gilberto Santa Rosa, among others. He has performed at the Boquete Jazz Festival in February 2011. We are happy to have him back in Boquete again!
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Idania Dowman is Panama's "Lady of Jazz". Having been raised in a musical family (her father "Lord" Byron Dowman is famous in the musical scene of all genres of Panama). Idania started singing as the 1st. voice in the choir of San Vicente de Paul church at the early age of 7. After honing her musical skills in several church choirs for years she turned her interest to more popular music taking part in festivals like the Bolero Festival and in the Afro Antillean Fair together with artists from Trinidad and Tobago, among others. In 2009 she represented Panama at the Ethnic Cultural Festival in Costa Rica. Currently Idania is the lead singer of the Panama Jazz Effects band. At the Boquete festival she will be singing in Carlos Ubarte's band.
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Saskia Laroo, hailed by the American public and press at large as "Lady Miles of Europe", is one of the few women trumpet stylists, blowing the horn for more than three decades. Saskia is working with three different bands. She loves Latin Jazz and it has been a profound influence on her musical vision. She had already garnered much experience in Latin jazz before forming Jazzkia playing different genres of Caribbean, Latin and Afro music such as calypso, cumbia, salsa, merengue, soca, kaseko. Jazzkia brings a lively mix of these and the newest styles, blended with jazz. We are excited being able to have her and her Jazzkia band perform at our festival!
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Betty Bryant is either a singer who plays piano or a pianist who sings. Each listener seems to have an opinion one way or the other. The truth is, even at age 82 she seems to do either with equal facility. Betty was born and raised in Kansas City, MO where she began taking piano lessons at age four. In 1955 Betty moved to Los Angeles and was hired almost immediately at Ye Little Club in Beverly Hills where another ex-Kansas Citian was performing (Earl Grant). This was the beginning of mostly solo performances in L.A. which quickly branched out to Malibu and Santa Monica. In 1987, after a concert for the Niles Home for Children in Kansas City, she was awarded the Key to the City and June 13th of that year was proclaimed Betty Bryant Day. She has appeared in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, and at Tableaux Lounge in Tokyo, Japan where she continues to perform for three months each year. We are very happy being able to present this pioneer of black female musicians in Jazz at the Boquete Jazz&Blues Festival!
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Smoking Time Jazz Club is one of the most energetic Traditional Jazz bands in New Orleans. They are influenced by the music of Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, as well as other legendary classics of the Jazz Era. Their high stepping sounds can be heard on Royal Street and nightclubs all across the world famous French Quarter, attracting tourists and locals alike. The band has been showcased at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, one of the "country's top ten of facilities that holds the most conventions and trade-shows annually." In performance, they are marvelous entertainers, including dancers as part of their act. The bandleader Giselle Anguizola is Panamanian from Chiriqui and she's excited about the chance to perform in her home country with her 9 piece band. And so are we!
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Rigoberto Coba (sax) is a well-known professor of music from David in Chiriqui province in Panama. He usually performs with his excellent quartet but for our festival he will put together a big band with 17 of the best musicians of Chiriqui province. We are very happy to give these great local musicians the chance to perform at our festival!
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