Doors 7pm
£25 advance



Jazz Cafe exclusive for legendary saxophonist &  world music pioneer

In a career spanning over half a century the Lion of Cameroon has proved himself a remarkably versatile force. An African ambassador.  A world music pioneer.  A creator of disco.  A champion of new talent.  A media-savvy style icon.  A humanitarian and philosopher.  A reporter and anthropologist.  A lover of everything from funk, hip-hop and cabaret to chanson, gospel and reggae; from Latin, Caribbean and West African rhythms to Congolese sounds and his very own Cameroonian derivative, makossa soul.  At 73 Dibango is still wielding his colour co-ordinated set of saxophones, still rippling his hands over the length of a marimba/xylophone, still improvising melodic lines from behind his circular black specs.  Above all else, he is a jazzman. Paris-based Dibango leads his trim jazz combo through sets that combine fresh African and Western grooves with good old-fashioned musicianship.  Buoyed by the ability to find the right phrase at the right time, Dibango’s effortless, articulate sax playing has got even better with age, ripened by a penchant for experimentation – one of fame’s luxuries – that has seen him alongside jazzers such as Art Blakey, Don Cherry and Herbie Hancock and African musicians including Salif Keita, Baaba Maal and the great Congolese band leader, Joseph Kabasele. His big-band shows are similarly legendary.

Indeed, in an age where fusion is commonplace and ‘world music’ a given, it is important not to underestimate Dibango’s role in making it so.  A glance at his extensive discography reveals an instinctive populariser, an artist bent on exploring whatever takes his fancy.  If his work is a little uneven as a result, Dibango is iconic enough to get away with it – to be applauded for his curiosity instead of criticised for his failures.  Living and working in various countries has seen him leap cultural boundaries with ease. His onstage patter is usually in French; his lyrics (delivered in a laid-back rasp) in the Douala language of his native Cameroon.  Those who feel he has forsaken his African roots forget his essence: that the music of this self-styled ‘negropolitan’ addresses what it means to be both a black artist and a citizen of the world.

Emmanuel Dibango was born in 1933 in Douala, Cameroon, the son of Protestant parents. His was a mixed heritage – his civil servant father was Yabassi, his choir-leader mother Douala – a fact notable in a country in thrall to its ancestral traditions. “Born of two antagonist ethnic groups in Cameroon, where custom is dictated by the father’s origin, I have never been able to identify completely with my parents,” Dibango once said. “Thus I have felt pushed towards others as I made my own path.”

Lion of Africa (GMCD/DVD01 & his latest album ) was released in Europe in April 2007 to mark Manu Dibango’s 50 years in music.