Son of Hungarian percussionist Istvan Dely and Colombian singer/songwriter Leonor, David was born in Bogotá in 1976 and raised in Cartagena and Barranquilla on the Caribbean Coast, the very heartland of Afrocolombian folklore and Gabriel García Márquez’ magical realism. As a musician he grew up amidst a host of Africaribbean drums and Native American flutes of his father’s percussion school, and together with his parents and his younger brother Shangó has been a pillar of their musical group Millero Congo for over fifteen years, where he was imbued with the spirit of experimentation, world-embracing fusion, creative freedom, always growing from his local roots: the tribalglobal approach. Much of the spirit and instruments of village music, many of the means and sounds of urban music, with a nature and purpose new and ancient.
In the year 1998,
in Bogotá, Colombia, David was taking part in different ensembles and
musical projects. About the middle of that same year it occur ed to him, with
some colleagues, the idea of putting together a show about an allegorical tale
for experimental theatre, where music and the gaita (traditional indigenous
flute from Colombia) could play an important role. In that way the debut of
the play “Choana Bacheche,” came out and took place in August of
that year at the National Museum of Colombia, performed by this collective,
for the first time under the name of TUMBA Y QUEMA Ensemble.
A year later, they started working only in the field of musical creation. Doing
so, the first demo of the group came out. For this work, the group now established
as a musical collective, counted with the participation of brilliant Colombian
musicians such as Faber Grajales (guitarist and composer), Juan Pablo Gasca
(bassist, arranger and musical producer) and Shangó
Dely (ethnic drums and percussion) among others.
In 2001, David and his wife, Claudia Andrade, moved to Budapest, Hungary. A
year later, a new cycle for Tumba y Quema had begun; a new phase in far away
lands. For that very reason – and for other reasons as well – the
beginning of what David was really looking for sprung forth: an identity and
sound of his own. First it was formed as a Colombian folkloric group, thus establishing
the musical foundations of the band as it is today. Offering recitals and concerts
in different events and festivals, step by step it got richer with its own experience
and development till finding a consolidation which is noticeable in its latest
work, “Son Maloso” (2006).
This production (“Son Maloso”) has been achieved with the help and
the incorporation to the band of Takács Márton and later of Shangó
Dely, who moved to Europe after having lived in the United States.
Thus, nowadays, David Dely & TUMBA Y QUEMA keeps winning the European audience’s
acceptance in general, with the quite disctintive, fresh and global sound of
its music, yet without failing to identify its Afrocolombian folk roots.