Johnny Dyani

Biography

Johnny Mbizo Dyani (30 November 1945 – 24 October 1986) was a South African jazz double bassist, vocalist and pianist, who, in addition to being a key member of The Blue Notes, played with such international musicians as Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, David Murray, Finnish guitar player Jukka Syrenius, Pierre Dørge, Peter Brötzmann, Mal Waldron, fellow South African Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), and Leo Smith, among many other prominent players.

Biography

Dyani was born (3 years before the establishment of Apartheid) and grew up in Duncan Village, East London, in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
In the early 1960s, he was a member of South Africa's first integrated jazz band, The Blue Notes, with Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto saxophone, Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone, Chris McGregor on piano, and Louis Moholo on drums. In 1964, the band fled South Africa to seek musical and political freedom. Moholo explained, "We were rebels and we were trying to run away from this apartheid thing. We rebelled against the apartheid regime that whites and blacks couldn't play together. We stood up."
In 1966, Dyani toured Argentina with Steve Lacy's quartet. Lacy, Rava, Dyani and Moholo recorded The Forest and the Zoo.
In 1971, Dyani formed his own group Earthquake Power, and in 1972 co-founded Xaba with fellow Blue Note member Mongezi Feza and Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz.
Performing widely throughout Europe, Dyani moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, in the early 1970s, to live with his wife, and about ten years later to Sweden, recording many albums under his own name. He recorded with Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, David Murray, Joseph Jarman, Clifford Jarvis, Don Moye, Han Bennink, Brotherhood of Breath, Mal Waldron, Pierre Dørge and many others.
Dyani died suddenly in 1986 after a performance in West Berlin.

Legacy

After his death, the remaining members of The Blue Notes reunited to record a moving tribute album, entitled Blue Notes for Johnny. Other musical tributes include:

Peter Brötzmann's album Fuck de Boere (1970), dedicated to Johnny Dyani
Pierre Dørge & New Jungle Orchestra's album Johnny Lives (1987)
David Murray's composition "Mbizo", which was first recorded on the Clarinet Summit's Southern Bells (1987) and the duo album The Healers with Randy Weston (1987) and giving the title to the World Saxophone Quartet's record M'Bizo (1997).
In a memorial published in the South African magazine Rixaka, Pallo Jordan wrote of Dyani: "Above all, his music resounded with a joy in life."
Johnny Dyani, wrote a song for Gerald Vuyisile Mei, in 1983 about their encounter, where GV Mei as an anthropological researcher shared his findings on oral tradition, he titled the song, 'Bongo', meaning, 'Proud'