During the 1970s, Darius Brubeck led his own groups, played with Don McLean, Larry Coryell and toured the world with Two Generations of Brubeck and The New Brubeck Quartet (Dave, Darius, Chris and Dan Brubeck) as an additional pianist and keyboardist. Several albums were recorded along the way.

But his focus changed to South Africa in 1983, when he initiated the first degree course in Jazz Studies offered by an African university at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Durban, South Africa and was later appointed Director of the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music, where he remained until 2006.

For 16 years Darius Brubeck and Afro Cool Concept (a band with South Africa’s premier alto saxophonist, Barney Rachabane, Victor Ntoni on bass and drummer Lulu Gontsana) performed all over Southern Africa and internationally. (Bongani Sokhela replaced Ntoni in 1996.) The band’s last CD, “Still On My Mind” was released in 2003 by Sheer Sound. In 2004 ‘Afro Cool’ gave concerts in Copenhagen, London and Memphis celebrating 10 years of democracy in South Africa.

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