In this month of December 2023, saxophonist Manu Dibango would have celebrated his 90th birthday! Almost 4 years after his death, his former stage and studio partners cannot bring themselves to see an imposing sound heritage disappear. The Manu Dibango Orchestra must live and perpetuate in music the message of unity and tolerance that the dashing patriarch had instilled. Claire Diboa, Julien Agazar and Philippe Davesne, traveling companions of Manu Dibango, remember their journey alongside the maestro and announce the return of a historic orchestra.
It is a huge challenge that must be met today by all those who had the privilege of meeting, collaborating and working alongside Manu Dibango. In addition to the need to legally preserve a massive heritage, we must continue to generate public enthusiasm. Since 2018, the Soul Makossa label has been conscientiously reissuing, album by album, the conductor’s entire discography. Recently, Sun Explosion has regained color thanks to an applied remastering which gives a new shine to this 1978 production. Thus, each year, one or two albums from the catalog bequeathed by this great figure of “The epic of Black Music” should appear. Recordings made shortly before his disappearance, which occurred in March 2020, should also see the light of day in the coming months.
Conversing with those close to Manu Dibango is a way of rekindling the flame. It is also an opportunity to remember great moments: the inauguration of Nelson Mandela in Pretoria in 1994 in which he took part, his participation in the various Francophonie summits in Paris, Nice and Rio, his “Symphonic Safari” on the French stages in 2019, its 80th anniversary at the Olympia in 2014, etc. The tumultuous life of Manu Dibango is a novel that we have not finished writing. His orchestra will live on and new performances are expected in 2024. Ronnie Scott’s, a legendary club in the British capital, will welcome Manu Dibango’s musicians on February 10, 2024, for a sumptuous celebration of the leader and his vast repertoire.
2025 should also require our attentive listening. 5 years after the departure of Manu Dibango, a memorial tour, new record releases and new reissues have been announced. The MDO (Manu Dibango Orchestra) will grant his wish to perpetuate the universalist intention of the music. Behind the scenes, everyone is preparing. The musicians, the organizing teams, the management, the lawyers, they are all convinced that this impressive building, built step by step by Manu Dibango over the decades, must resist the erosion of time and continue to convey a consensual and altruistic.
⇒ Manu Dibango’s Facebook – Official.
