DUDUVUDU

It seems like a hundred years ago but the first time I saw Dudu Pukwana was a rammed night at the 100 Club and, if memory serves, Elton Dean called Dudu up to jam with the Blue Flames. One of London Jazz legends, he was a fixture on the scene for around thirty years before his death in 1990 but the players who knew him through the Brotherhood of Breath, Assegai, Spear and more sessions that can be counted all remember him fondly and with a sense of awe.

This album is essentially a best of – except Dudu isn’t playing. Instead his songs are being played by a collective of some of the finest musicians around today and the strength of his music shines out like a searchlight. He was primarily a sax player and the sax features strongly throughout but he was also a fine pianist and the piano takes the lead from time to time illustrating his wide ranging talents.

The music that leaps off the CD is alive, vibrant and full of the character that wrote it all. A track like ‘Ezilalini’ featuring a duel between sax and trombone or his wonderful and uplifting ‘Diamond Express’ recalling township days in South Africa. His great friend from his Blue Notes days, Mongezi Feza, supplies ‘Sonia’, a sublime piece of afrobeat but this is mainly Dudu’s compositions and never better than on the lazy and soulful ‘Angel Nemali’.

There is a brilliant sense of groove that is there all though the album, rhythms that defy you to sit and listen rather than dance around the room with the sheer funk of it all. The playing is superb and all played very much from the heart and as one who saw Dudu many times over the years you do feel wistful for a great musician lost too early. Those who never saw him can revel in the sheer wonder of the music he left behind.

A terrific celebration of the man’s music and a worthy album in its own right – spot on.