South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim is performing at the Berklee Performance Center on Saturday November 16th, presented by Celebrity Series of Boston. Al Davis and Va Lynda Robinson, hosts of ...

Born in 1934 in Cape Town, Dollar Brand, as he became known, was exposed to a melting pot of cultural influences: African Khoi-san songs, Christian hymns, gospel tunes, and spirituals, as well as ...

There’s nobody who knows better how to mix disparate, even seemingly inapposite, musical moods and feelings better than Abdullah Ibrahim. In a concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Friday and Saturday, ...

South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim laughs when he remembers a gig he played shortly after he moved to America in 1965. “There was this club in New York and I suggested that I bring my trio,” ...

(One person says) “You see that man over there? He's very talented. He speaks 40 languages!'? (The other replies) “Oh yeah, Well what does he say?'? ~Abdullah Ibrahim (after being asked by an ...

In today's session, we have a very special guest: one of jazz's great ambassadors and, perhaps, the finest jazz pianist to hail from South Africa. In the '60s, Ibrahim left South Africa due to ...

South Africa arguably offers the headiest jazz brew found beyond the borders of the U.S. And since the 2018 death of trumpeter Hugh Masekela, the undisputed elder statesman of the nation's jazz has ...

The pianist and composer shares his insights on growing up in apartheid-era South Africa and what freedom means to him today. Abdullah Ibrahim: How Improvisation Saved My Life The music of pianist and ...

Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Abdullah Ibrahim. Jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim waited at the piano, listening intently, while his ...

Like many jazz musicians, South African pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim grew up listening to gospel music. His grandmother played piano in the African Methodist Episcopalian Church. Unlike many ...

When jazz was in its infancy, people thought of it as music—if they regarded it as music at all—that was invariably loud, fast and rambunctious. From the beginning, “to jazz something up” meant to ...