Abdullah Ibrahim: Life in a Melody

Created: 05/16/2022, 17:06

By: Susanne Greiner

Music legend Abdullah Ibrahim at the grand piano in the Landsberger Stadttheater: the pianist and composer improvised and enchanted his audience.

© Greiner

Landsberg – When Abdullah Ibrahim lifts his fingers from the keys after a good hour of improvisation and the music falls silent, something is missing.

Ear, heart and brain look back to the stories that the musician weaves with his compositions.

Even if Abdullah Ibrahim has become a little 'softer' at the age of almost 88: the audience in the sold-out municipal theater is already cheering when the jazz legend performs.

And at the end donates a standing ovation for the South African pianist.

Ibrahim is led onto the stage by his wife.

He will be 88 on October 9th. He usually celebrates this day with a solo concert.

So also in 2021, in Riedering.

The result is the current album "Solotude".

However, his performances are always unique.

Also in Landsberg: the jazz pianist sits down at the grand piano – and plays.

A beguilingly simple melody that wanders, breaks up, breaks, reassembles - and is never aimless.

She grabs you in the heart.

Ibrahim improvises for over an hour at a time.

With his 'direct' compositions and the razor-sharp, 'existential', no-frills touch, he creates images to which he takes his audience – or rather: invites them.

What can be heard there seems to be himself, his life.

Something that is difficult to put into words.

Edmund Epple, music director at the Stadttheater, calls it the reduction to “the essence of expression”.

Or “disarmingly beautiful music”.

Abdullah Ibrahim was promoted by Duke Ellington.

At that time, the Cape Town-born Adolph Johannes Brand still called himself 'Dollar Brand' – supposedly because of the one-dollar jazz records he was passionate about collecting.

In 1968 he converted to Islam, became Abdullah Ibrahim.

He fought apartheid with music, and his composition “Mannenberg” became the unofficial anthem.

And he sat at the piano at Nelson Mandela's inauguration.

Ibrahim draws the basis of his music from his African roots.

This is shown by the gentle, calm man at the end of the concert, when the audience demands an encore (it has already received one).

Ibrahim stands at the edge of the stage, supported by his wife, and sings two African songs with a shaky voice.

Or gospel, "Wade in the Water" and "Deep Water, my home is over Jordan".

For him, home is not tied to one place, Ibrahim once said.

"Home is where you find serenity." When you see this man and listen to his music, you know he's come home.

And invites everyone.