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Johnny Dyani

African Bass (LP)

Label: Red Records

Format: LP

Genre: Jazz

Out of stock

Deluxe reissue edition. Restoration and digital transfer from original analogue tapes. Reissue of a 1979 duo recording of legendary South African bassist Johnny Dyani (of The Blue Notes) and drummer Clifford Jarvis (who played with Sun Ra for over two decades). 180g vinyl presented in a deluxe gatefold sleeve - limited edition manufactured by German audiophile specialist, Pallas Group.

Johnny 'Mbizo' Dyani was a jazz musician who performed during the apartheid era. He played for almost his entire career in exile before passing away in West Berlin, Germany at the age of 39. Dyani actively fought against the apartheid regime through the medium of music and assisted the African National Congress (ANC) by performing at events in Africa and Europe. Johnny Dyani is best known for his membership with the Blue Notes, an interracial band that performed for a brief period in South Africa before moving to Europe. Like Sun Ra before him, Johnny Dyani is also an Afrofuturist, as they both share the similarity of recording music which created a new synthesis using Afrocentric and respectively space-themed and segregation-less titles to reflect their linkage of ancient African culture (Egyptian for Sun Ra and isiXhosa for Dyani) and the cutting edge of the Space Age.

 

"I could play jazz, but, first of all, I play black music. We have a message. Louis Armstrong had it, Ellington had it, and Gillespie has it. It can be political, sociological, economic, it can be about the good times or the bad ones. It is our way of communicating. You don't have to read big books about a country or a population to know what they want. Listen to the music and you will know what they have to say." Johnny M. Dyani

Details
Cat. number: RDSI5465045
Year: 2024
Notes:
Recorded at Barogozzi Studio, Milan, November 14/11/79.