Scullery Department (from Jazz Epistle Verse 1, 1960)

Born Adolph Johannes Brand in Cape Town in 1934, Abdullah Ibrahim spent his six-decade career defining the heartfelt sound of South African jazz. Making his professional debut as a pianist at 15 under the name Dollar Brand, it was his co-founding of the group the Jazz Epistles in 1959 that laid the groundwork for his journeying career. South Africa’s first Black jazz group, featuring trumpeter Hugh Masekela who would go on to become a star bandleader in his own right, the Jazz Epistles’ first and only album Jazz Epistle Verse 1 is a sprightly document of the South African take on bebop. Although album opener Dollar’s Moods is named for Ibrahim, it’s the record’s closing number Scullery Department that highlights his nascent skills. Heavy-swinging over a bluesy motif, Ibrahim’s playing artfully skips through an opening polyrhythm before taking a solo that refigures Thelonious Monk’s wonky melodic motifs into an earthy sense of groove that would go on to feature throughout his hundreds of recordings to come.

Jumping Rope (from Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio, 1964)

Although the Jazz Epistles never recorded overtly political music, the arrival of the 1960s brought vicious repression (including the Sharpeville massacre), and the apartheid regime placed Black artists under greater scrutiny, leading Ibrahim to flee his home country for Europe. In Zurich, Ibrahim’s future wife Sathima Bea Benjamin encouraged big band luminary Duke Ellington to watch Ibrahim play with his trio. Sure enough, Ellington set up a recording session. The resulting album is a gem, displaying Ibrahim’s fast-developing chops. Tracks such as Dollar’s Dance showcase his gospel influence in its jubilant phrasing but it’s Jumping Rope that explores his virtuosity, speeding up the melodic Monkisms into modernist bursts of fire. A fragmentary delight on an album which benefited from a wider release in the 1990s.

Mannenberg (Mannenberg – Is Where It’s Happening, 1974)

From the late 1960s, Ibrahim began regular visits back to Cape Town, converting to Islam and changing his name in 1968, before making the hajj pilgrimage in 1970. It was during a trip to an increasingly fractious Apartheid-era Cape Town that Ibrahim would write what has become his most well-known composition, Mannenberg. Named after a Cape Town township to which low-income Black families were forcibly relocated, the song finds its resistance in a persistent mood of joy, featuring Ibrahim’s ear worming, ebullient top-line melody and a roaring solo from tenor saxophonist Basil Coetzee. The song was recorded in a single take but soon became an unofficial civil rights anthem, often played at rallies and becoming a favourite of Nelson Mandela’s, who reportedly listened to a smuggled version during his imprisonment on Robben Island.

Jabulani (Joy) (The Journey, 1977)

Ibrahim’s friendship with jazz fusion trumpeter Don Cherry throughout the 1970s encouraged the pianist to turn further towards the avant garde. For 1977’s album The Journey, Ibrahim enlisted one of his largest ensembles to date – a nine-piece – to produce three tracks of upbeat melody anchored in hard-blowing, free tempo improvisations. Seventeen-minute suite Jabulani (Joy) is a highlight, opening with a typically cheerful Ibrahim lead line before a barrage of penetrating free improvisation. Cherry and alto saxophone player Carlos Ward soar upward but Ibrahim’s tender phrases just about keep us grounded.

Just You, Just Me (African Dawn, 1982)

From the maximal invocations of The Journey and Ibrahim’s late 1970s experimentalism comes a delightfully delicate solo outing on 1982’s African Dawn. Featuring tributes to jazz forebears such as Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn, it’s Ibrahim’s interpretation of the rollicking 1929 musical number Just You, Just Me that stands out. Employing a heavy left hand bass drone to give the tune’s floating melody added weight, Ibrahim masterfully employs everything from stride rhythm to gospel phrasing and bluesy improvisation, turning his 88 keys into a symphony of sound.

Mandela (Water from An Ancient Well, 1985)

Ibrahim’s septet Ekaya would prove to be one of his most enduring bands after its formation in 1983. Featuring the unusual format of three saxophones, trombone, bass and drums, the expanded horn section allowed Ibrahim to write compositions with a big-band feel and a driving small format rhythm section. This combination is deeply felt on the opening track Mandela from Ekaya’s 1985 album Water from An Ancient Well. Featuring one of the deepest swinging feels in modern jazz, the composition features joyous solos from each member of the horn section while Ibrahim himself keeps to the background, gently pushing the rhythm on with his well-placed right hand phrases.

The Wedding (African Suite, 1998)

On 1998’s African Suite, Ibrahim paired his piano trio with a 17-piece string section, showcasing the melodic depth of many of his most enduring compositions. One of his standards to be given the luscious orchestral treatment is the yearning love song The Wedding, which was initially recorded on the 1980 record African Marketplace. Melismatic strings sweep through an opening overture before Ibrahim’s precision piano notes enter the frame with their inimitable swing, containing as much wistful emotion as a lead vocal line. Ibrahim also uses orchestral settings in his skilful film scoring work, which included the Claire Denis features Chocolat and No Fear, No Die.

Joan Capetown Flower (Emerald Bay) (Sotho Blue, 2010)

Sotho Blue features a welcome return to the Ekaya format and updated versions of standards from Ibrahim’s repertoire such as The Wedding and 1978’s Nisa. On the group’s take on his 1997 composition Joan Capetown Flower (Emerald Bay), a down tempo, swaying melody sets up an interweaving duet between tenor saxophonist Keith Loftis and Ibrahim, trading finely-woven lines that move beyond a question-and-answer format into a complex, nuanced dialogue of its own.

Dreamtime (The Balance, 2019)

In 2019, at 85 years old, Ibrahim delivered a late-career surge of new music spanning the Ekaya record The Balance, as well as the solo piano albums Dream Time and Solotude, and the live trio recording 3. The new opening composition for The Balance highlights Ibrahim’s constant capacity for creative journeying, featuring longtime collaborator Cleave Guyton on flute. Eschewing his typically upbeat tone, the track moves through a breathy, surprisingly mysterious mood with Ibrahim delivering short, precision-engineered improvised lines to complement Guyton’s emotive vibrato. An unexpected foray into new territory.

Nisa (Solotude, 2020)

On one of Ibrahim’s final solo piano recordings, 2020’s Solotude, the octogenarian embraced the limits of his physicality to create a sprawling 20-track suite that replaces the frenetic energy of early work with the likes of the Jazz Epistles and Don Cherry for something altogether more ruminative, introspective and moving. His version of Nisa, which has appeared in recordings since the 1970s, is particularly affecting, taking ample time to move from phrase to phrase as if Ibrahim is recounting the story of his life’s experience as it comes to him in the moment. Still, the swinging feel, the blue notes and the aching melody are all unmistakably his – a pianist’s touch that will never be fully imitated.