1001 Albums
en
Create account

44 albums · 1966–2020

Music of Panama, from the típico and Rubén Blades to El General, Danilo Pérez, Sech and today

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

Sandra Sandoval singing on stage with a microphone
Danilo Pérez, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Rubén Blades standing together in front of paintingsSingers and a drummer of the congos of Portobelo in bright dresses and crowns, singing at microphones
Sandra Sandoval, of Samy y Sandra Sandoval, on stage at the Fiesta de Fiestas in Chitré in 2012. Photo: Ayaita, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Danilo Pérez, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Rubén Blades in Panama City in January 2013, the week of the Panama Jazz Festival. Photo: US Embassy Panama, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. · The congos of Portobelo, on the coast of Colón, singing with their drum in 2023. Photo: JoaPérez22, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Panama's popular music has the accordion of the típico at its heart, Dorindo Cárdenas, Ceferino Nieto, Osvaldo Ayala, Alfredo Escudero's cumbia, Ulpiano and Victorio Vergara and Samy y Sandra Sandoval, and around it the combos nacionales of the sixties and seventies with Bush y sus Magníficos, Los Mozambiques and Los Silvertones, Lord Cobra's calypso, the salsa of Rubén Blades from Siembra to Buscando América, the jazz of Luis Russell, Carlos Garnett and Danilo Pérez's Panamonk, Pedro Altamiranda's carnival songs, El General, Nando Boom, Aldo Ranks and Kafu Banton, who made the reggae en español, La Factoría, Flex, Makano and Joey Montana, the rock of Los Rabanes, Señor Loop and Cienfue, Erika Ender, the congos of Colón, and Sech and Boza today. The list has 44 records from 1966 to 2020, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; the murgas of the carnival, the drums of Colón beyond a nod, the mejorana and the décima of Azuero, the song of the comarcas and most of the classical tradition, with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional as a single nod, are left for other lists. About 32 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

By genre

Reggae 13%Latin 7%Jazz 6%Other 74%
  • Reggae 13%
  • Latin 7%
  • Jazz 6%
  • Other 74%

The genres named most: panamanian, típico, reggaeton, salsa, jazz, pop.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Panama 44. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.