Manu Dibango

Coronavirus has taken Manu Dibango, Cameroonian saxophonist and vibraphonist, aged 86. Manu was a giant of Afro- jazz whose 1972 hit Soul Makossa was a massive influence on pop music, a track originally written for the African Cup Of Nations football tournament of the same year. His Cameroonian upbringing and family, schooling in Paris, time in Brussels, periods spent in Congo and Cameroon, life in Paris, touring Europe with Africa Jazz, show a life lived well. This is a very laid back piece of music and hopefully might make day two of lockdown more tolerable. RIP Manu.

Bessoka (Version Courte)

Love Saves The Day

Let's keep dancing but today with a tinge of sadness. It was announced on Monday that David Mancuso has died aged 72. Mancuso is something of a legend. As a dj in New York in the 1970s he created invite only parties that mutated into The Loft, the spiritual home of NY disco. His 'anything goes as long as you can dance to it' attitude to his selections, his nights as a haven for the 'disaffected and disenfranchised' of New York, his state of the art sound system, his belief that mixing spoilt the purity of the records (he would play the whole song, leave a brief gap and then play another), his view of djing as creating a mood, a scene, taking the dancers on a journey- all hugely influential. And yet he still took the view that the dj should not be put on a pedestal, that the record selector was just one part of the party.

Musically he stretched far beyond disco, playing whatever records he found that made people dance. These two songs became alternative anthems due him championing them...

The Mexican by Babe Ruth.



Soul Makossa by Manu Dibango.