Unstoppable Ibrahim embarking on world tour for his 90th birthday
Abdullah Ibrahim, SA’s most distinguished pianist, was born on October 9 1934 in Cape Town.
This year marks not only his 90th birthday, but also the start of a world tour.
Christine Lucia has studied Ibrahim’s work and published research articles about him.
We asked her why he is so important.
Who is Abdullah Ibrahim and what shaped him?
Abdullah Ibrahim is the finest jazz pianist-composer that SA has ever produced.
He is the country’s equivalent of the US jazz star Duke Ellington, because his legacy lies not only in his live performances or multiple recordings but also in his large number of compositions.
He was brought up going by the name Dollar Brand and was shaped personally by his mixed-race parentage and by growing up in the mixed-race area of District Six.
The area was demolished during the 1970s by the white minority apartheid regime and 60,000 people were forced to live far outside Cape Town on the Cape Flats.
He was shaped by this violent political landscape of racism and oppression.
As a young man he was also shaped by his conversion to Islam in 1968, which is when he took the name Abdullah Ibrahim, and by his practise of martial arts and Zen (a form of Buddhism).
He was shaped musically by the variety of different genres he heard in Cape Town, including jazz, the Kaapse Klopse, Christian hymns, Islamic chanting,
African-American spirituals, traditional music from Lesotho and even by Indian classical music.
What distinguishes his work?
His work as a composer is distinguished by its pianism and its international flavour.
He has also played flute, cello and soprano sax which gave him insights into ensemble playing.
He has written great tunes, but it is his harmonies, textures, colours, rhythms, phrasing and pianistic flow that make his compositions outstanding.
His recordings are distinguished by the huge development of jazz style and treatment within them over 70 years.
His music of the 1960s contains avant-garde (experimental) sounds; his music from the 1970s and 1980s is full of references to Africa, while in the 1990s, with the fall of apartheid, Ibrahim’s music took on a more sentimental mood.
In later life he became more interested in arrangements, in orchestrating his music.
Another thing that distinguishes his career is that while he has always written new pieces he has also constantly reinvented and reimagined old ones.
What are his career highlights?
The album Jazz Epistle — Verse 1, made in 1960 by Dollar Brand, Mackay Davashe, Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and Kippie Moeketsi, was among the first black jazz recordings in SA.
Dollar Brand and his wife Sathima Bea Benjamin, went into exile in 1962, at first in Zurich.
While he was there, Ellington heard him play in 1963 and immediately produced the album, Duke Ellington presents The Dollar Brand Trio.
In 1965, the couple moved to New York.
They founded their own record label in 1981, Ekapa (The Cape), though he continued to record with the Enja label.
In 1988, he composed music for the award-winning French film Chocolat. In 1990, he gave triumphant “homecoming” concerts when Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists were released from prison. In 1994 he performed, memorably, at Mandela’s presidential inauguration.
His “home concert” online during the Covid-19 pandemic reveals his more intimate side.
Is it common to be performing at 90?
In some professions, like conducting, yes. But it’s rare.
Great pianists of the past played on into their 90s, but made more and more mistakes playing the same music the same way.
His 2024 tour looks punishing, but he is taking plenty of breaks in between concerts in Italy, SA, Germany and the US.
The tour ends in Bavaria, immediately after he turns 90, on October 9.