CLAUDE DEPPA GROUP
A 8 piece band featuring 3 horn players and a 5 piece rhythm section
“Full of passion and unmistakable African grooves". Alyn Shipton, The Times.

CLAUDE DEPPA HORNS UNLIMITED
A 15 piece big band featuring 11 horn players and a 4 piece rhythm section
“Horns Unlimited is one of the most exhilarating big bands ever to have been born in Britain”
Alyn Shipton, The Times.

Recording - “Toi Toi “ JIKA Records JK008/2003

“Claude Deppa is one of the few musicians who can play anything from juju to swing to improvised music"
The Rough Guide To Jazz

South African trumpeter CLAUDE DEPPA is the consummate jazz eclectic. According to Penguin Rough Guide To Jazz, he is one of the very few musicians who could play anything from juju to swing to improvised music.

This eclecticism has seen him playing African, world, Afro-Cuban, jazz, improvised, soul, funk and European chamber music. Claude Deppa is known for his unpredictable, tart sound which he has contributed to a variety of projects that have toured the world including the UK.

Claude Deppa arrived in the UK at 17 and began his professional career in 1977 with Dave Holdsworth Quartet and made his first festival debut in 1979 with Johnny Dyani Group. Since then he has been enjoying a colourful career performing and recording with fellow South Africans like Miriam Makeba, Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor, Louis Moholo, The Township Express, Julian Bahula and others.
 
He has also recorded and performed with the likes of Art Blakey, Archie Shepp, Dewey Redman, Evan Parker, Carla Bley, Harry Beckett, Andy Shepperd's In Co-Motion and Soft On The Inside, Hermeto Pascoal's Big Band, Courtney Pine, Steve Williamson, Brice Wassy, Jazz Jamaica, Brian Abrahams' District Six, Clifford Jarvis' Jazz Prophets, Tony Haynes and Grand Union Orchestra, Wolfgang Pushnig’s Alpine Aspects, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and many other groups.

THE CLAUDE DEPPA GROUP

For his 8-piece group CLAUDE DEPPA has written music that blends African rhythms with contemporary jazz and street grooves underpinned by the melodies of the brilliant horn section to create fresh and exciting music.

The band includes a mix of Cameroonian, Nigerian, Ghanaian, South African, Sierra Leonian talents that explores the fusion of unremitting pulsating African rhythms with contemporary grooves typified by the music of legendary African figures like Manu Dibango, Fela Kuti, Dudu Pukwana and Hugh Masekela.

The music of CLAUDE DEPPA embraces a combustible mix of South Africa's township grooves, Nigeria's Afro-beat,  Ghana's highlife, urban jazz, afro-funk and carnival music.

With his cd “Toi Toi” (Jika Records) CLAUDE DEPPA and his musicians return to their African roots in spectacular style with a mixture of intensely danceable African rhythms and virtuoso jazz solos.

CLAUDE DEPPA'S HORNS UNLIMITED

CLAUDE DEPPA'S 15-PIECE HORNS UNLIMITED features arguably some of the finest horn players in UK jazz scene. For this group Claude Deppa has written music that deftly blends contemporary jazz with street grooves to create music that defies category.

Horns Unlimited positively percolates with blazing horns, unremitting pulsating contemporary rhythms buoyed by ethereal melodies. The sound of HORNS UNLIMITED showcases many wonders of the music of the African Diaspora: the infectious rhythms, the joyous horns underpinned by thumping bass lines of the tuba and bass trombone.

This is music that embraces free jazz to improvisation to street funk to carnival music.