Abdoulaye N'diaye

In his early years in Dakar Senegal, young Abdoulaye Ndiaye started learning the saxophone by stealing his dad’s alto saxophone and blowing into it. A few years later at age 14 he started taking lessons from his father, then as a teen ,joined the conservatoire and began formal musical study with eastern Europeans teachers.

Few years later, Abdoulaye met legendary jazz teacher Sam Sanders at the conservatoire in dakar and started jazz improvisation class. After graduating from the conservatoire, he began to play with local bands and record with local artists like Pape Dieng Souleyman, Faye Abl Aye Mbaye, Harmattan Pape Djiby ba, Mike Gomis and others.

In 1995 Abdoulaye met world famous piano player McCoy Tyner and played with him at the Saint Louis Jazz Festival. Later Abdoulaye started traveling Europe playing clubs and meeting many influential jazz musicians like Billy Harper, Michael Becker, David Murray, Mal Waldron, Steve Houben and many others.

After moving back to Dakar, Abdoulaye got a call from David Murray asking him to join his Octet and Big Band.
2001 Ndiaye moved to New York and toured with David Murray. After the tour, he found work as a side man or in his own bands.

Abdoulaye describes the period as “Running form club to club, expressing myself self and meeting lots of other musicats”