🎷🇺🇸🇫🇷👨‍🎤🔥💿 American saxophonist Curtis Ousley, better known as King Curtis, was tragically murdered in New York in August 1971, while working on John Lennon’s Imagine album. Curtis was at the height of his fame, with a number of soul and rhythm’n blues hits to his credit, and was, among other things, Tina Turner’s musical director… In France, a promising young saxophonist, for whom he was one of the influences, pays incognito tribute to him with this little 45 rpm, A Tribute To King Curtis. Two tracks of powerful jazz funk, including Power, 3 minutes 30 of pure molten lava. On the A side, I Remember moves from blues to inspired soul. But who is Junior Dibbs? Yes, it’s the great Manu Dibango, who hasn’t yet become the Soul Makossa Man everyone knows. That’ll be for next year. In the meantime, Junior Dibbs & Society released two small singles, this one, and Hot Thing in 1972, in the same vein, which probably caught the public’s attention a little more. It’s a pity the project didn’t go any further, but Manu would retain in all his future music his trademark soul/funk spirit, mixed with afrobeat and jazz.
Tribute To King Curtis – Junior Dibbs & Society, 1971
