A new music festival is bringing an overlooked chapter of jazz history back to its roots. The first edition of the Luis Russell Jazz Festival, also known as LURU Jazz Fest, will take place on October 16 and 17 across Isla Colón and Isla Carenero in Bocas del Toro, honoring a pianist, composer, and bandleader born on Isla Carenero in 1902 who went on to share stages with some of the greatest names in American jazz.
What Happened
The festival, organized by the Fundación Bocas para Todos, will combine concerts, free workshops, and historical programming spread across the two islands over two days. According to organizer Alessandra Bueno, the event will feature performances at multiple venues alongside educational activities designed to reconstruct the history behind the music.
The musical lineup brings together musicians from Panama City and local artists, blending traditional jazz, swing, and Afro-Caribbean expressions. Confirmed participants include the Luis Russell Tribute Band, the Luis Carlos Pérez Quintet, Refined Jazz Band, The Mutual Chambers, Rumbay Son, and Idania Dowman.
A significant portion of the festival will take place away from the stages. At the Hou Wang Museum, attendees can dive deeper into Russell’s story and Panama’s broader connections to jazz. Programming includes a conference on the arrival of New Orleans jazz in Bocas del Toro at the start of the 20th century, and a presentation in English of Pioneer: The Journey of Luis Russell from Bocas del Toro to the Jazz Age by researcher Ariel Pérez Price. The festival will also screen Soñar el Jazz, a documentary by director Luis Romero exploring Panama’s role in the genre’s history and the cultural ties between Afro-Caribbean communities, the wider Caribbean, and New Orleans.
Background
Few people know that an important piece of jazz history has roots in Panama. Luis Carl Russell was born on Isla Carenero in 1902 and grew up in a household where music was a natural part of life — his father was a music teacher. Although a multi-instrumentalist, Russell focused on the piano from an early age and later developed a major career as an arranger and orchestra director.
His rise took place against the backdrop of a very different Bocas del Toro. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the province maintained intense maritime connections with other Caribbean ports and the United States. It was an international hub where goods, people, sounds, and cultural influences all circulated. According to Pérez Price, records show around 200 direct transits between Isla Colón and New Orleans in 1897 alone — a maritime corridor that helped carry Caribbean rhythms northward.
In the United States, Russell passed through New Orleans, Chicago, and New York — the three cities most fundamental to jazz’s transformation in the early 20th century. In Chicago, he played in the orchestra of Joe “King” Oliver, and in New York he formed his own ensemble. Recordings by the Luis Russell Orchestra from the late 1920s and early 1930s belong to a pivotal period of musical change that preceded the consolidation of the swing era. Russell also worked alongside Louis Armstrong, placing him in direct contact with some of the most recognized figures in American jazz history. For Pérez Price, part of the musician’s historical significance lies in how “he contributed to expanding the borders and development of the genre.”
What This Means for Panama
For the festival’s organizers, reviving Russell’s name is about more than paying tribute to a single musician — it is about building cultural identity around a figure whose story connects Panama directly to the foundations of one of the world’s most influential musical genres.
The festival is also notable for how it came together. Bueno explained that the project has received little commercial sponsorship and that Bocas del Toro residents have contributed their own money to make it possible. The organizers have also set differentiated pricing, allowing local residents to purchase some tickets at half the regular price, ensuring the community can access its own history.
The timing is strategic as well. The dates were deliberately chosen during the low tourism season, with the aim of attracting visitors and generating economic activity in the archipelago during a slower period — positioning culture as a year-round driver of local commerce.
If this first edition succeeds, the LURU Jazz Fest could become a recurring fixture on Panama’s cultural calendar, offering a model of community-driven heritage tourism while cementing the recognition of Luis Russell as one of the Panamanian pioneers of jazz.
This story was originally reported by La Prensa.