Yakir Arbib and Conti Bilong ‘Afro Baroque’ album launch at Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho, London.

Date: Thursday, September 18, 2025

Venue

Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho, London

Pizza Express Jazz Club,
Dean Street,
Soho,
London,
W1D 3RW.

More details

From;
https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/yakir-arbib-and-conti-bilong#event-dates

Peter Conway Promotions Present:
Yakir Arbib and Conti Bilong
Afro Baroque
PizzaExpress Jazz Club (Soho)

‘Afro Baroque’ is the new exciting multi-cultural duo collaboration between international award winning pianist and composer Yakir Arbib, and Manu Dibango’s Cameroonian virtuoso drummer and vocalist Conti Bilong. Yakir and Conti will previewing music from their forthcoming album ‘Afro Baroque’ to be released in October 2025.
This concert will be filmed by French TV.

18 September 2025 Doors 6:30pm Music 8:00pm PizzaExpress Jazz Club (Soho)
Available
£25.00

Full Biography

Coming from two of the most unrelated musical backgrounds that you could imagine, the two musicians found an instant connection after meeting for the first time in Paris in July, 2023.

“I was looking for a new drummer for my jazz trio” says Yakir. A friend suggested I take a listen to this incredible drummer Conti Bilong. But as soon as I heard the first notes from a video on Youtube, I immediately realised that here was a musician with such a strong and natural force of rhythm and movement such as I’ve never heard anywhere before.”

As soon as the two met in a small rehearsal room in Paris and started playing “Caravan” by Duke Ellington, something inexplicable happened. An instantaneous musical connection resulting from the alchemy of this unlikely encounter.

The two musicians explore traditional rhythms from central Africa and the Middle East, and fuse them together in a unique musical language amalgamating Baroque style counterpoint and dynamic jazz interplay.

We believe that now more than ever, we need connections, bridges, and strands of colour and beauty that connect opposite cultures, traditions, languages and religions together from across the world. Afro Baroque’s music is exactly that! We connect seemingly diametrically opposed worlds: the studious European counterpoint on one side, and the unstoppable force of joy, rhythm and dance coming from Africa on the other.

Band Line-up
Yakir Arbib (piano and synthesiser)
Conti Bilong (drums, percussion, vocals)