Rizal Dondi Ledesma also known by the stage moniker, DNDI, was a Filipino

Filipino people

The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....

 bassist

Bassist

A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

 who was the recognized pioneer of Philippine Progressive Rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

.

His mainstream musical career was most prominent for his supporting role as the virtuoso electric bassist behind the legendary Pinoy rock

Pinoy rock

Pinoy rock, or Filipino rock, is the brand of rock music produced in the Philippines or by Filipinos. It has become as diverse as the rock music genre itself, and bands adopting this style are now further classified under more specific genres or combinations of genres like alternative rock,...

 guitarist, Wally Gonzalez, and drummer-singer-composer Joey “Pepe” Smith

Pepe Smith

Joseph William Feliciano Smith is a Filipino singer-songwriter, drummer, and guitarist. More commonly known alternately as Joey Smith and Pepe Smith, he is an icon of original Filipino rock music or "Pinoy Rock"....

, the main proponent of the Pinoy Rock movement.

He performed in a handful of historically-significant recordings, including two albums by the Filipino folk-rock group Asin

Asín

Asín is a municipality located in the Cinco Villas comarca of the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain, located a few kilometers west of Orés. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 106 inhabitants....

, and Pepe Smith's only solo outing, Idiosyncracies. In 1991, he began independently producing and recording a series of one-man albums, alternately playing bass guitar, piccolo bass guitar, keyboards, flute, sequencers, computer programming and vocals.
He also recorded with the groups, Asin

Asin (band)

Asin is a Pinoy folk and folk rock band from the Philippines. They started as a trio in the late 1970s, and was originally known as the Salt of the Earth]...

 and Anakbayan. He had started collaborating with Johnny Alegre

Johnny Alegre

Juan Bautista H. Alegre , widely known as Johnny Alegre, is a jazz guitarist and composer from Manila, Philippines...

 (frequently with drummer Paolo Manuel) in a jazz-rock trio over a two-year period when illness overtook him.

In his live performances, DNDI was a crowd favorite because his bass guitar demonstrated qualities of a lead guitar instrument.

Ledesma died of clinical heart failure on February 24, 2009 at the Makati Medical Center

Makati Medical Center

Makati Medical Center is a 717-bed tertiary hospital in the Philippines. The hospital began operation on . Since its start in 1969, the Makati Medical Center has been the birthplace for many dramatic firsts in medical history in the Philippines, in Asia, and the world...

, where he was confined after complaining of shoulder pains and wobbly legs in the morning of January 9.

Solo discography

• DNDI I (1991, Cassette)
• DNDI II (1992, Cassette)
• Shadow Of The Sun (1993, Cassette)
• Medicine (1995, Cassette)
• The Last Electric Knight (1997, Cassette)
• Original Sin (1999, Cassette)
• The DAM Songs (2000,CD-R)
• The DAM Songs 2 (2000,CD-R)
• Die Black Rat (2000,CD-R)
• Soundtracker (2000,CD-R)
• Nova (2002,CD-R)
• Fulcrum (2004,CD-R)

Note: All aforementioned albums were produced, recorded, published and distributed by Dondi Ledesma through private, independent channels.