It was sometime in 1995, when I entered the internet for the first time. Naturally as ProgHead, the first search I entered was "Progressive Rock." There within the first page of twenty results, was a description of something I had been hoping to find since finding out about the international Progressive Rock community. It was a Filipino Progressive Rock artist.
His name was Rizal Dondi Ledesma. I was amazed that his page appeared on the first twenty search results, but that was testament to his strategy of using the internet to promote himself. The links page of his site, linked to his artist page at various websites offering free music downloads. I was sad to learn then that the only way to acquire his albums was through a chain of musical instrument stores in the Philippines. They were sold on home-made cassettes using the artist name, "DNDI." I would have to satisfy myself with the songs he made available for free download on the internet. The good news was that he made a lot of music available for download.
Dondi made his living as a Professional musician playing Bass Guitar. He had worked with many famous artists in the Philippines, most notably, with the members of Juan Dela Cruz, legends of the Philippines' Rock scene of the 70's. Every time they would get back together, he was their Bass player. He was also the Bass player for their individual solo projects. For the past few years, he had a regular gig with the Wally Gonzalez Band.
Dondi was driven to the Bass Guitar due to the soft-spoken and modest nature of his personality. He considered the Guitar to be the Rock Star's instrument. This has led to a peculiar quirk of his solo recordings. The "Guitar" parts are played on a Piccolo Bass. Dondi did not invent the instrument. It's most famous player would have to be Stanley Clarke. It's basically a Bass Guitar strung with Guitar strings. The tuning is one octave higher than a normal Bass Guitar. This allows a Bassist to play Guitar parts using Bass techniques. Dondi occasionally even uses his Piccolo Bass as a Lap Steel Guitar.
The instrumentation in his recordings is augmented by Flute and Keyboards, both of which Dondi plays at nearly the same level of virtuosity with which he commands on the Bass Guitar. The Drum parts are sequenced. There is, however, footage of Dondi playing real drums on his YouTube videos. It may be that he is capable of playing Drums, but just doesn't have room for a Drum set in his home studio. He also sings all the vocals.
A band is generally constrained by a formula resulting from the role each member plays. As a one man band, Dondi is bound by no such limitation. He has the freedom to try everything his creative mind conceived of, and he had a lot of ideas. He used styles based on Jazz, Blues, Techno, Metal, Big Band, Classical, Ballads, and Folk Dances. This was Progressive Rock in the truest sense of the name.
Dondi's most significant international achievement would be winning two prizes on a contest on AcidGuitar.com. He won in the Jazz and Metal categories. The two MusicMan basses in his collection are the prizes.
At the beginning of the new millennium, fans were finally able to purchase his music on CD, this time using the artist name, "DNDI Dondi Ledesma." The website "Mp3.com" manufactured albums on demand for anybody who could place an order on the website. Mp3.com ceased operations when it sold the domain to another company in 2003. This was just before Dondi would complete his "Fulcrum" album, containing his crowning achievement, "Concerto 03 For Electric Bass." I haven't been back to the Philippines since I left at age 12. I had to send relatives to get it for me. It was being sold at of all places, an eyewear store.
His next album would be a collaboration with Chris Messer, the American Drummer for the Wally Gonzalez Band. The two of them went into a studio in 2002 to record Bass and Drums. Dondi then dubbed the other instruments in his home studio. The result is essentially a DNDI record with a live Drummer. The duo went by the name, "Two ChileKings," and the album is called, "Thwip." The duo's MySpace page was discovered by Vince and Daisy, the hosts of Prog'opolis, a streaming radio program on www.thedividingline.com. They included the album on their best of 2008 show.
In 2008 Mauro Moroni of Mellow Records in Italy, posted on the Pinoy Progressive Community Forum, asking about Filipino Prog artists. I emailed Dondi with this information. The answer I got from him left me puzzled. He was, of course, grateful for my work with NoyProg.com, but the rest of the email was full of pessimism. He said that he was working on the last DNDI album. Why was he sure it would be the last? Was he retiring afterwards? It didn't make sense to me. Hindsight as they say is 20/20. I got that message five months before his untimely passing. It should have been obvious then, but I wasn't willing to even consider the possibility. Of course! He probably had the prognosis of cancer by then. Dondi is not a big celebrity, so there was no public information regarding his health, but I received a clue last October. When I got the news that he was in the hospital, my shock is only due to denial that he was sick at all.
Dondi Ledesma is the Father Of Filipino Progressive Rock because he was the first, then others followed. Last year someone argued to me that he doesn't really qualify because he wasn't proactively promoting Progressive Rock in the Philippines. It was a valid argument. It certainly applies to someone who was adopted. A person's "real" father would be the one who raised him, and was there every step of the way, not the one who merely provided the genetic information. Like I said, it was a valid argument, except there really isn't someone else more qualified for the title. Dondi is the Father Of Filipino Progressive Rock because he was the first and others followed, and that's good enough. He is the progenitor of the nascent Prog scene in the Philippines, where at the moment there is one band poised to make a breakthrough in the international Prog scene, Fuseboxx.
Dondi Ledesma died on February 24, 2009 at Makati Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized since January 9. The cause of death is heart failure. He had been fighting lung cancer.
For sure, there will be tributes forthcoming from the growing scene of Filipino Prog artists. I'm finishing writing this on March 11, other Filipinos are celebrating the coming concert in Manila by Journey, and mourning the death of Rapper, Francis Magalona. I'm a Prog fan, however. I'm celebrating the coming international breakthrough of Fuseboxx, and mourning the death of Dondi Ledesma, the Father Of Filipino Progressive Rock.
--Ronnie "The Cruiser" Cruz
