Abdullah Ibrahim

"A master of understatement and balance"

The New York Times

South African jazz pianist, composer, improviser, and anti-Apartheid activist Abdullah Ibrahim is a musician “belonging to both an old world and a new one” (The Guardian). Born Adolph Johannes Brand in 1934 and raised in the Kensington suburb of Cape Town, Ibrahim’s musicality found a voice at an early age, leading him to tour with local jazz bands under the moniker ‘Dollar Brand’. In the late 1950s, during a pivotal and tumultuous time in South Africa’s history, his group Jazz Epistles became the first Black South African group to record a full-length jazz album.

A self-imposed exile from South Africa saw a conversion to Islam and eventually took Ibrahim to New York to create a new jazz sound that drew from African Methodist church hymns, dancehalls, South African marabi, and the American jazz of Duke Ellington. Now known as Cape Jazz, the song-like harmonies inspire reflection, improvisation, and ambiguous ambiance that reference the emotions of Ibrahim’s “musical middle-state” (The New York Times). Ibrahim’s approach to melodies with expert understanding of past and present allows for an improvised musical conversation that seamlessly continues on and on.

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Curated by multi-media producer Jarrett Martineau