Abdullah Ibrahim
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Abdullah Ibrahim ( Arabic عبد الله إبراهيم, Maiden name Adolph Johannes Brand; * October 9, 1934 in Cape Town ) is a South African pianist and composer . He also plays the flute, saxophone and cello. Abdullah Ibrahim is considered to be the protagonist of the modern creative style in jazz music . Before he took his current name with his conversion to Islam in the late 1960s, he called himself Dollar Brand . His composition Mannenberg was at times considered the anthem of the non-white population of South Africa under the apartheid regime .
Live and act
Ibrahim grew up with his grandparents in Kensington , one of the poorest black ghettos in Cape Town. His father was murdered, as were some of his friends. The American Methodist Episcopal Church, where his mother and grandmother played the piano, was a resting point for him. As a seven year old boy he learned to play the piano. In 1949 he became a professional musician, initially accompanying a vocal group, the Streamline Brothers ; he later played in groups like the Tuxedo Slickers and the Willie Max Big Band . From 1958 he led a quartet with Kippie Moeketsi , which included Johnny Gertze (bass) and Makaya Ntshoko (drums). In 1960 and 1961 he appeared with the band, which was expanded by Hugh Masekela and Jonas Gwangwa to form the Jazz Epistles sextet .
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In 1962 he took the opportunity to leave South Africa after he was with the musical King Kong in an England guest performance; Together with the South African jazz singer Sathima Bea Benjamin , who became his wife in 1965, he initially settled in Zurich . There he performed as the Dollar Brand Trio, with bassist Johnny Gertze and drummer Makaya Ntshoko, for almost two years mainly in Cafe Africana , where he was discovered by Duke Ellington .
Through Ellington's mediation, his trio was able to make a first record, Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio , which was released in 1963 by Reprise, and performed at important festivals such as Antibes . In 1963 he made a guest appearance in Paris with Sathima Bea Benjamin; In 1964/1965 he toured Europe and performed at the Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen , among others , before going to the USA, where he first appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1965, then worked with his own trio and with John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman . In addition, the pianist acted as Ellington's substitute in 1966 at some concerts of the Duke Ellington Orchestra , then dissolved his trio and joined Elvin Jones ' quartet, where he stayed for half a year. In the following years of the decade he worked on various projects, including touring as a soloist in 1968, playing in Don Cherry's bands and in a duo with Gato Barbieri . In 1968 he converted to Islam.
The dance music and religious hymns from the South African townships , along with compositions by Duke Ellington, are among the most important influences on the works of Abdullah Ibrahim. Ibrahim, who was clearly pianistically influenced by Thelonious Monk and Randy Weston , performed solo, in a sextet, but also with large-format groups, including Carlos Ward , Don Cherry and Johnny Dyani . In 1974 - for a short time in South Africa - he organized recordings for several influential records by Cape Jazz musicians such as Basil Coetzee and Robbie Jansen , which were initially distributed as small distributors , including his composition Mannenberg with an impressive solo by Coetzee, which are in the order of magnitudes that are otherwise only hits and soon became an unofficial anthem of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. During a later stay in 1976, he also organized a jazz festival, with which he ignored the apartheid laws of the regime at the time. In 1977 he moved to the USA.
Abdullah Ibrahim gave a series of "freedom concerts" in Maputo in August 1982 in memory of the social scientist Ruth First, who was killed in a bomb attack in that city . One of the contributors was his wife, Sathima Bea Benjamin. The concerts received political recognition thanks to the personal presence of Samora Machel and his wife Graça Machel .
In 1982 he presented his Kalahari Liberation Opera in Europe . In 1990 he returned to Cape Town, where he significantly influenced the South African jazz scene. At the same time he kept his residence in New York. In 1994 he played in Nelson Mandela's inauguration . In Cape Town, Ibrahim founded the "M7" academy to support the musical education of young South Africans; In 2006 he was the initiator of the Cape Town Jazz Orchestra , an 18-piece big band .
Ibrahim repeatedly worked with big bands and symphony orchestras. The African Suite for jazz trio and symphony orchestra was created in 1997 from the cooperation with Daniel Schnyder , who orchestrated his compositions . He also worked with George Gray , Buddy Tate and Max Roach . He also appeared repeatedly with solo programs, most recently documented on Senzo (2008). In 2011 he wrote his piano cycle African Songs . As an interpreter he is "a magician of repetition, and behind every note there is a whole landscape"; the music "radiates space and tranquility".
In 1999 Ibrahim was awarded the Order for Meritorious Service in silver. In 2009 he received the Aachen Innovation Prize for Art , endowed with 10,000 euros and awarded by the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation . In the same year he received the Order of Ikhamanga in silver. In 2017 he was awarded the German Jazz Trophy . The daughter of Ibrahim and Sathima Bea Benjamin is the New York underground rapper Jean Grae ; another child is the son Tsakwe.
Discography (selection)
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Film music and documentaries
- With the album Mindif, Abdullah Ibrahim created the film music for the racism study Chocolat - Verbotene Sehnsucht by Claire Denis in 1988
- In 1990 he created atmospheric dense music for another film by the director Claire Denis, this time for the drama No Fear, No Die (original title: S'en fout la mort )
- A Brother with Perfect Timing is a Chris Austin documentary about Ibrahim that was shot in 1987 and released on DVD in 2005.
- In 2004 director Ciro Cappellari shot the documentary homage Abdullah Ibrahim - A Struggle for Love , for which he received the Grimme Prize in the Information & Culture category in 2005 .
literature
- Toni Hildebrandt: Abdullah Ibrahim. Grin, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-66230-7 .
- Bert Noglik : CapeTown Traveler: Abdullah Ibrahim 70 . In: Jazz newspaper . No. 10, 2004.
- Lars Rasmussen: Abdullah Ibrahim: A Discography. Booktrader, Copenhagen 1998.
- Abdullah Ibrahim: African Songs for Piano . Schott, Mainz 2011.
Lexigraphic entries
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : The Rough Guide to Jazz. Rough Guides Ltd., London, ISBN 1-84353-256-5 .
- Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
- Wolf Kampmann (Ed.), With the assistance of Ekkehard Jost : Reclams Jazzlexikon . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-010528-5 .
- Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 .
Interviews
- Stefanie Flamm: Jazz musician Abdullah Ibrahim: Overcome your fear! . In: The time . No. 20/2013
Web links
- Official website (English)
- Maxi Sickert : My hands are too big for Bach . Zeit Online , March 18, 2006; Portrait with sound examples
- Abdullah Ibrahim in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Footnotes
- ^ Abdullah Ibrahim in the Swiss hit parade
- ↑ a b Kalamu ya Salaam & Mtume ya Salaam: Abdullah Ibrahim: "Mannenberg Is Where It's Happening" . In: breath of life. March 17, 2008
- ↑ Maya Jaggi: The sound of freedom . In: The Guardian . December 8, 2001
- ↑ The combo was founded in 1959 for recordings with the American pianist John Mehegan and had recorded Jazz Epistle Verse One, the first jazz album by black South African musicians.
- ^ John E. Mason: "Mannenberg": Notes on the Making of an Icon and Anthem ( Memento June 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). In: African Studies Quarterly. Vol. 9, Issue 4, Fall 2007
- ^ Colin Darch: The Murder of Ruth First: 4th The Dollar Brand-Abdullah Ibrahim Concert . on www.mozambiquehistory.net (English)
- ↑ Konrad Heidkamp : 70th birthday: Allah's melodies . In: The time . No. 42, October 7, 2004
- ↑ List of recipients of the medal 1999 (English), accessed on August 25, 2018
- ↑ List of recipients of the award 2009 (English), accessed on November 27, 2015
- ↑ German Jazz Trophy goes to Abdullah Ibrahim. jazzzeitung.de from January 2017, accessed on August 6, 2017
- ↑ Gold / platinum database of the Federal Music Industry Association, accessed June 19, 2016
- ↑ CD Universe: Abdullah Ibrahim - A Brother With Perfect Timing DVD .
- ↑ Grimme Institute : Prize Winner 2005: Abdullah Ibrahim ( Memento from December 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ibrahim, Abdullah |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Brand, Adolph Johannes (maiden name); Dollar fire |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | South African pianist and composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 9, 1934 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cape Town |