JAZZ guitarist Jimmy Dludlu's happy lyricism was first recognised by the playwright and poet Duma ka Ndlovu, who was an early champion of the musician, singing his praises following the release of his first album, Echoes from the Past in 1997.

Looking back, it is possible to see how the guitarist's innovative playing helped to craft a new idiom. He was a bandleader at a time when horns ruled, following in the footsteps of American greats Wes Montgomery and George Benson. His work is unmistakeably pan-African, mixing the Portuguese influences of Angola and Mozambique with the French sounds of the Francophone countries and local South African rhythms.

He set a trend: former Sakhile bass guitarist Sipho Gumede released a solo album, and pianists Don Laka and Moses Molelekwa and a slew of guitarists also went their own way, tired of being confined as sidemen in rhythm sessions.

Before releasing his first solo album, Dludlu cut his teeth playing with various bands - from 1986 - in Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and South Africa. He also attended the music school at the University of Cape Town, where he completed a three-year scholarship in the jazz programme. Here he honed his skills in composition and craft.

His latest album, Portraits, paints a picture of the artist in the middle of his career. His two distinct qualities are here: the unalloyed lyricism and the vocational dedication to craft, shown in the raft of songs he wrote for the album.

Where his previous four albums were sometimes gleeful, sometimes contemplative leeway-side-mountain-climbs, Portraits is a meditative ascent, atop-the-peak, downward-look-where-I-come-from before descent or flight into the unknown. It has a mature, incisive and cumulative quality that informs the listener through a wider outlining of history and formative environment, both personal and musical, that ‘this is who I am, this is my identity, this is my personality, this is the air of the culture I grew up breathing'. And still breathe.

For Dludlu is an artist who paid his dues, to use the old-fashioned 1940s jazz expression, in what could be called a 10-year musical apprenticeship, affecting other artists along the way and infusing a profound mark of modernity among South Africa's then budding but uncertain musical talents. In the mid-1980s in Swaziland he played in the appropriately named band, Impandze, which is siSwati for roots. It also featured the Jamaican singer Trevor Hall and Batswana artists Kalahari and Satari.

He toured Botswana in 1986 with a new combo called Anansi, once again drawing in artists from far and wide. The Ghanaian saxophonist George Lee was also in the group.

South Africa
Dludlu came to South Africa in 1990 and got down to perfecting his craft as a session musician. He played for South African saxophonist McCoy Mrubata's outfit Brotherhood, which a year later went on to win the now defunct Gilbey's Music of Africa Competition. He was also involved in the theatre production, Conversation, staged in September 1990 at the Market Theatre, in Newtown. It was spearheaded by Canadian artist Bruce Cassidy with South African saxophonist Barney Rachabane.

Together with some of his Mozambican compatriots based in South Africa, in 1991 Dludlu formed the seminal Loading Zone, a group that mixed its own recordings with playing as session musicians for diverse South African artists, including the Afro-pop queen Brenda Fassie and Chicco, Sipho Mabuse and trumpeter Hugh Masekela. Dludlu also played rhythm guitar on Miriam Makeba's homecoming album, Eyes on Tomorrow.

He went on to feature in the production Sax Appeal, at Sun City in North West, where he shared the stage with Rene McLean, Robbie Jansen, Winston Mankunku, Victor Ntoni and the late Duke Makasi. With Loading Zone he toured Namibia in 1992, leading to the band being asked to back the France-based Congolese king of soukosa, Papa Wembe. He returned to South Africa in 1993, and was asked by the saxophonist Morris Goldberg to play as his rhythm man in the band Ojoyo, at the Smirnoff Jazz Festival in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape.

The following year, Dludlu was back in Grahamstown, this time playing alongside the American jazz legend Herb Ellis, an original member of Oscar Peterson's ensemble, when he toured South Africa. At this time, the guitarist took up his studies at UCT. In 1994, along with his own band, he briefly headed up to Johannesburg to play at the newly launched Arts Alive festival and at the launch of the Guinness Jazz Festival.

The band boasted a sterling cast of talent that would define the new wave of jazz, such as the uncompromisingly sophisticated Vusi Khumalo on drums, the progressive Fana Zulu on bass, the unknown young pianist Moses Molelekwa, Mrubata on sax and John Hansen on percussion. All these boldly individualistic talents have since gone on to chart their own paths, with varying degrees of success.

Freedom
For his part, Dludlu was invited to represent South Africa at a celebration of the country's newly won freedom at Paris's La Villette, alongside such home-brewed musicians as Masekela, Busi Mhlongo, Dorothy Masuku and Dolly Rathebe. On his return from Paris, the Cape Town film producer Revel Fox made an intimately revealing 30-minute documentary on the musician, titled The Birth of Jimmy Dludlu in a pointed reference to Miles Davis's tradition-altering album, The Birth of Cool.

The following year Dludlu featured in the African Reconnection Tour of Senegalese guitarist Ismaël Lô, during its South African leg. In 1996, he returned to Johannesburg to perform in Arts Alive, where played alongside Britain's astonishing saxophonist Courtney Pine; his consistent performances and universal praise by both the print media and fans earned him a record deal with PolyGram, which later became Universal.

His debut album, Echoes from the Past, was released the following year, in September 1997. It won two Sama awards - Best Newcomer and Best Contemporary Jazz Album. He became a constant presence at the Samas, with several awards and numerous nominations under his belt: Essence of Rhythm won him Best Male Artist and Best Contemporary Jazz Album; Afroncentric won him Best Male Artist, Best Album and Best Producer, bringing to the fore his skills as a music producer; Corners of My Soul won him Best Male Artist and Best Jazz Album.

Universal's Verve label snapped up the album for release in nine overseas markets, including the United States, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Hungary.

While his music is difficult to categorise, Dludlu's is neither traditional South African jazz nor a foggy, exotic world music; it is a modern jazz from the line that stretches from Montgomery to the post-Davis fusion sound that has defined jazz since the mid-1970s.

Discography:

• Portraits (2008);
• Corners of My Soul (2005);
• Afrocentric (2002);
• Essence of Rhythm (1999); and
• Echoes from the Past (1997).