DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. South Africa-born pianist, composer and band leader Abdullah Ibrahim died Monday at age 91. He began recording in South Africa in the 1950s, when he played with a pioneering band called The Jazz Epistles alongside trumpeter Hugh Masekela. Abdullah Ibrahim left South Africa in 1962 and spent most of his life away, though he did play at President Nelson Mandela's inauguration in 1994. Abdullah Ibrahim, in his travels, recorded dozens of albums for dozens of labels around the world. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead has this appreciation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM'S "CHERRY")
KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: "Cherry" by Abdullah Ibrahim, who wrote many hypnotic piano pieces that roll on and on. It's named for Don Cherry, a fellow jazz globe-trotter. Abdullah Ibrahim was born in Cape Town in 1934 as Adolphus (ph) Brand. His early records were under the name Dollar Brand. Grandpa and mom played piano in the family church. Gospel music cadences and tin-whistle Cape Town street-music melodies left permanent marks on Abdullah's composing. But the land of apartheid was no place for Black self-expression. In his late 20s, he moved to Switzerland, where Duke Ellington heard his trio in 1963 and recognized a kindred spirit. Luckily, a few days later, Duke was producing some recording sessions in Paris and made room for Abdullah's South African trio. This is "Dollar's Dance."
BIANCULLI: (SOUNDBITE OF THE DOLLAR BRAND TRIO'S "DOLLAR'S DANCE")
WHITEHEAD: His mature piano style's not quite there yet. He's still digesting influences like Duke and Monk, with their own percussive keyboard attacks. The resulting album banner "Duke Ellington Presents" brought him international attention, but Abdullah's late '60s and early '70s solo records really made his reputation. Here's another catchy one, "Tintinyana," with a persistent, tumbling bass figure.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM'S "TINTINYANA")
WHITEHEAD: A couple of minutes later, the left hand stubbornly sticks to that bass part while his right hand goes wherever, although the hands check in with each other periodically. There's a suggestion of all manner of African percussion ensembles with their layered, contrasting rhythms. You might think of it as Africanized boogie-woogie.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM'S "TINTINYANA")
WHITEHEAD: By the late 1970s, Abdullah Ibrahim was recording all over, from Toronto to Tokyo, in Europe and in New York, where he lived off and on, and even in South Africa. He recorded some traditional chants from back home alongside a fellow refugee, bassist Johnny Dyani. In that duo, Ibrahim also played a bit of flute, echoing those childhood tin-whistle tunes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM'S "MSUNDUZA")
WHITEHEAD: By 1980, now based in New York, Abdullah Ibrahim put together some larger ensembles that eventually led to his working septet, Ekaya. Like Ellington, Ibrahim wasn't just a dynamic pianist who wrote steamroller tunes. He composed beautiful ballads - none more so than "The Wedding," a song you could play in church. Saxophonist Carlos Ward takes the lead, but don't miss the horns murmuring in the background.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM'S "THE WEDDING")
WHITEHEAD: "The Wedding," from Abdullah Ibrahim's 1985 album "Water From An Ancient Well." In later decades, he toured widely and kept making solo and small combo albums. He'd do guest appearances with European radio orchestras and big bands and played lots of jazz festivals. He slowed down some in his 80s, when he became an NEA Jazz Master, but he could still keep a band on its toes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM & EKAYA'S "JABULA")
WHITEHEAD: "Jabula," recorded by a late version of his band Ekaya in 2018. In the end, the pianist divided his time among the U.S., South Africa and Germany, where he passed away on June 15 at 91. Abdullah Ibrahim was a citizen of the world who always remembered where he came from.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM'S "MANNENBERG REVISITED")
BIANCULLI: Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead. That's "Mannenberg Revisited." Coming up, we listen back to our 1989 interview with Abdullah Ibrahim. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. As a young man, Abdullah Ibrahim listened to jazz on Voice of America broadcasts in South Africa. Before he converted to Islam, he was known by the nickname Dollar, a name given to him by American soldiers stationed in Cape Town during World War II, who sold their latest jazz recordings to him. Ibrahim later recorded dozens of albums of his own for dozens of labels around the world. Pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim died Monday at the age of 91. His song, "Mannenberg," became the theme of the 1976 Soweto uprising, and his composition "Mandela" was written for Nelson Mandela. Apartheid drove Ibrahim out of South Africa in 1962, and he lived in exile for many years in the U.S. and Europe. Terry Gross spoke with Abdullah Ibrahim in 1989. His parents wanted him to become a doctor, but Blacks were refused entry into medical school, another of the limits placed on his life under apartheid.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
ABDULLAH IBRAHIM: In terms of the music, it was probably for me the only means of escape because at least we could play in our own environment. So I grew up in - playing dance bands, behind vocal groups, playing variety concerts. But the main halls or arena of activity on a social, economic and political - from those aspects were completely denied to us.
TERRY GROSS: What was it that finally made you decide to leave South Africa? Was there a last straw or a breaking point?
IBRAHIM: There are vivid images and memories of confrontation with apartheid and being subjected to its brutality. The - so one has decision to make. Either you stay there and toe the line, or you leave and try to carry on or play the music, or you stop. We just stopped giving - like, it's happened to so many of our talented people.
GROSS: After you left South Africa, you returned again in the mid-'70s and recorded some sessions there. And one of the pieces that has recently been reissued is your piece "Cape Town Fringe." And I know that this is very popular in South Africa at the time of the Soweto uprising. Can you tell me about writing and recording this piece?
IBRAHIM: Yes. It was after deep contemplation, being out all those years that we decided to go back, but it was at a time when I took shahada, when I became Muslim. And that was on the way to making Hajj, going to Mecca for pilgrimage. And I needed to do it from home. And it was at that time that I got together this group of young musicians, and we recorded a lot of music. The song "Cape Town Fringe" was recorded in Cape Town. The original title is called "Mannenberg." Mannenberg is a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, the counterpart of Soweto, perhaps.
When the album was released in this country, the marketing people decided to call it "Cape Town Fringe," which I think was agreeable because township, or just the word Mannenberg, was completely, I think, foreign to people here. Like always, as always in any struggle, and especially in Southern Africa, the music has played a very important role. We recorded this. We were in a studio in Cape Town, and this piece of music came. In the studio, we were busy recording some other pieces. And we recorded it just once - one take and left it, but we all felt so elated because we felt that we had captured the mood of the people at that time.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM'S "MANNENBERG")
GROSS: On the original recording of "Mannenberg," recorded in the mid-'70s, you're playing electric piano, which I don't think you play anymore (laughter).
IBRAHIM: No.
GROSS: How does that sound to you listening back to it - the electric piano?
IBRAHIM: Sounds good. But the reason for doing the reason for doing that was because we needed to take the music out to the people, I mean, live. And sometimes it was problematic to have an acoustic piano, let alone a grand piano. So we utilized the electric piano. That was really the only reason for...
GROSS: That's interesting. When you left South Africa, you met Duke Ellington, and he was very helpful for you. In fact, I think he was responsible for your first recording outside of South Africa.
IBRAHIM: That's right.
GROSS: I think your music still sounds very influenced by Ellington. Do you feel that way?
IBRAHIM: How can we escape Ellington?
GROSS: (Laughter) Who would want to?
IBRAHIM: Exactly. Exactly. Even if people want to deny it, there's no way - and not - I'm not - we do not just mean jazz musicians, but contemporary 20th century music anyway and anywhere that it is played, how can you escape Ellington?
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM AND EKAYA'S "SONG FOR SATHIMA")
GROSS: When you are holding a rehearsal with your musicians, and you're teaching them or giving them a new piece of yours, how do they learn it? Do you give them music? I mean, do you write it down for them? Do you sing it to them, play it for them? What do you do?
IBRAHIM: Well, the musicians have a saying when you say, we're going to have rehearsals and they say, where's the paper? Because I asked them to notate the basic skeleton of the piece first. So what I would do is when there is a new piece, I - the piano is, like, command post.
GROSS: (Laughter).
IBRAHIM: And I just come into the studio and start playing, even while they are busy setting up and talking about fried chicken they had or where they visited the night before. And whoever hears it first will pick it up. And so the song is built around that person, the first one who picks it up and finds an interest.
GROSS: Oh, really?
IBRAHIM: Yes.
GROSS: So what do you mean it's built around them? Like the - they'll get the first solo? Or...
IBRAHIM: No, not the first solo, but perhaps the lead.
GROSS: Oh, I see.
IBRAHIM: Yeah.
GROSS: What a really nice interaction. I guess, also, it makes - it's kind of something of an incentive to make sure people pick up on it really quickly (laughter) 'cause then they'll be more prominent.
IBRAHIM: Yeah, because the idea is really not to write notes and give it to people to play. It's the other way around. And that's why the so-called jazz music is so precious. It is so precious. It's perhaps the last bastion of human creativity.
GROSS: Abdullah Ibrahim, I thank you so much for speaking with us.
IBRAHIM: You're welcome. Thank you very much.
BIANCULLI: Abdullah Ibrahim, speaking with Terry Gross in 1989. The South African pianist and composer died Monday at age 91. On Monday's show, Laverne Cox. For a decade, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America, but she spent most of her life keeping herself hidden. We talk about her new memoir, her childhood in Mobile, Alabama, and the current political backlash against transgender people. Hope you can join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM AND WDR BIG BAND COLOGNE'S "MANDELA")
BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez.
For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF ABDULLAH IBRAHIM AND WDR BIG BAND COLOGNE'S "MANDELA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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