Style comes slowly

Following the release of Essence of Rhythm in 1999, he followed up with the single Winds of Change last year. Now, after a European tour and a 15-month deliberation process, he has come up with his third full-length album, Afrocentric, which was released last Friday.

Dludlu is fiercely driven by the challenge of working with other artists, young or old, newcomers or established ones. On Saturday night at the Kora awards in Sun City he will perform Africa, a song he recorded with American gospel artist Bebe Winans. On the album he features Cape Town-based vocalist Melanie Scholtz, a finalist at the coming Old Mutual Jazz Encounters for whom he predicts great things.

His Winds of Change remix featured Bongo Maffin and taps into the kwaito generation. He continues the bid to woo teenyboppers and club hoppers by having Winds of Change remixed by DJ Fresh and the title track off the new album remixed by DJ Oskido.

The under-30s seem to be responding well. Last year they voted him the Best Jazz Artist at the Metro awards. This year he has been nominated alongside Sipho Gumede and Gloria Bosman.

One of the many highlights of the album is a short note from Hugh Masekela comparing Dludlu to luminaries such as George Benson, Django Rheinhard and Wes Montgomery, something that he admits puts pressure on him.

“It is a challenge for me,” he says. “I built my style of playing around these people. It puts pressure on me but also makes me want to lift my standard. Also when this is coming from Bra Hugh, someone who I have played with since [the early 1990s], means a lot to me.”

Another accolade comes in the form of the free services of Sam Nhlen-gethwa and Zwelethu Mthethwa to design the album sleeve.

“This was an honour for me. It shows the importance of working together as artists,” he says. The sleeve features shots of Dludlu and his band in gigs in Cape Town. It is layered with a rusty ochre texture and has that popular voodoo mask motif. Thankfully, the title Afrocentric is not an attempt to pander to middle-class black South Africans’ newfound deep sense of “reawakening”.

“This title comes from my second and third year at varsity,” he says, referring to the University of Cape Town in the mid 1990s. “I spent those years travelling and researching traditional Southern African melodies.” During this period he had a brief stopover in Namibia and composed One in Between, which has now finally been recorded. Two tracks draw inspiration from depressing scenarios.

When the music community gathered to bury Basil Coetzee, the route to the funeral was lined by people playing the late saxophonist’s music and chatting about his legacy. It was there that Dludlu composed Basil Goes to Church, which has a Manenberg vibe. But it is River of Lost Dreams that is permeated by poignancy.

In February, South Africa was numbed by the death of Moses Molelekwa. This is the man who Dludlu had played with at the Guinness Jazz Show to launch their careers. Molelekwa was — like Dludlu a keen researcher with a deep interest in West African sounds. What’s more, at the time of his death, they were due to team up and form an all-star band to perform at the North Sea Jazz Festival. “His death was a loss for me. It was just a loss of talent that feels like a river of lost dreams.”

Dludlu invited playwright Duma ka Ndlovu to record the African Mythology poem he delivered at Molelekwa’s funeral.

To round off the work, Dludlu has used The Wood that Sings of Sorrow. If you expect something grim and melancholic, you will be disappointed. This is an upbeat track that happens to be named after a documentary on a troupe of traiditional xylophone players from Zaire.

Now Dludlu has to go through what he describes as “a difficult adjustment process” and practise jazz standards from John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Montgomery after delivering a lecture as part of his music honours programme.

After that, he has the London release of his album and what has now become a hectic touring schedule. On the home front, a lot of these performances will be on the Standard Bank Jazz Festival circuit and in Europe it will include his launch pad, The North Sea Jazz Festival.

The stylish one has done it again.