Hybridity and Identity in the Pan-American Jazz Piano Tradition

The term Latin jazz often has been employed by record labels, critics, and musicians alike to denote idioms ranging from Afro-Cuban music, to Brazilian samba and bossa nova, and more broadly to Latin American fusions with jazz. While many of these genres have coexisted under the Latin jazz heading in one manifestation or another, Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez uses the expression “Pan-American jazz” to account for both the Afro-Cuban jazz tradition and non-Cuban Latin American fusions with jazz. Throughout this dissertation, I unpack the notion of Pan-American jazz from a variety of theoretical perspectives including Latinx identity discourse, transcription and musical analysis, and hybridity theory. I demonstrate how the music of five Latin jazz pianists—including Pérez, Tania Maria (Brazil), Pablo Ziegler (Argentina), Eddie Palmieri (New York/Puerto Rico), and Jorge Dalto