A life-long music lover and accomplished pianist, esteemed law professor and classic late-bloomer Juan Perea has finally gotten around to making his recording debut at the age of 68.

Now, with the release of Lightkeeper on the ZOHO label, Perea may henceforth be regarded as the hippest faculty member at Loyola University in Chicago.

In pursuing a career as a law professor while maintaining a playing interest in jazz, Perea is following the lead of West Coast pianist-composer Denny Zeitlin, a longtime touring and recording artist who is also a clinical professor of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco. Denny always gave me inspiration, he said. I once asked him, How did you get so good at two things? and he said he never imagined not playing piano and not having it be a huge part of his life. And I think this is true for me also.

Co-produced by keyboardist-composer-arranger George Whitty, who has toured and recorded with the Brecker Brothers, Herbie Hancock, Grover Washington, Jr., Dave Matthews, Santana, Celine Dion and Chaka Khan, Lightkeeper is a long-overdue statement from a man who has dedicated decades of his life to teaching law and preaching social justice while never losing that initial spark for music that consumed him from an early age.

1. Oye Como Va (Radio Edit)
2. Lifestyle
3. El Sueño
4. Tyner Tune
5. City Swing
6. Remembering You
7. Lightkeeper
8. Oye Como Va (Full Version)
9. Lightkeeper II

This truly heartfelt musical excursion opens on the all-embracing rhythms that drives the wonderful Oye Como Va (Radio Edit) and the effortlessly translucent melodies within Lifestyle, and they are in turn followed by the late night ambiance showcased within the dulcet El Sueño and then we get playfully perky Tyner Tune brought forth.

Along next on this sumptuously impassioned new album is the fervently charged, funkily-grooved Tyner Tune which is itself backed seamlessly by the classically-hued ballad Remembering You, the quietly poignant piano ballad Lightkeeper, the album rounding out on the near ten minute full version of a highly atmospheric Oye Como Va, closing on a palpable, effervescent beauty within Lightkeeper II.

On Perea’s auspicious debut, he is backed by an all-star crew including alto saxophonist Eric Marienthal (Chick Corea Elektric Band), bassist Jimmy Haslip (Yellowjackets), bassist Hadrien Feraud (Chick Corea, John McLaughlin’s 4th Dimension Band), bassist Janek Gwizdala (Randy Brecker, Mike Stern), drummer Tom Brechtlein (Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Robben Ford & The Blue Line), percussionist Steve Thornton (Miles Davis, Marcus Miller) and veteran session bassist Gary Haase.

The late guitar great Dean Brown (Brecker Brothers, Billy Cobham) also delivers several pulse-quickening solos in what turned out to be one of his final recordings.