Results for "abdullah ibrahim"

Abdullah Ibrahim

Abdullah Ibrahim’s new solo program transcends category, combining the intimate and the universal in a unique way that is hinted at in its title. SENZO means “Ancestor” in both Chinese and Japanese. SENZO also echoes the name of Abdullah Ibrahim’s Sotho father, in whose language the word translates as “Creator”. Abdullah Ibrahim, South Africa’s most distinguished pianist and a world-respected master musician, was born in 1934 in Cape Town and baptized Adolph Johannes Brand. His early musical memories were of traditional African Khoi-san songs and the Christian hymns, gospel tunes and spirituals that he heard from his grandmother, who was pianist for the local African Methodist Episcopalian church, and his mother, who led the choir

The Word from Johannesburg, Part I: Nduduzo Makhathini

By KARL ACKERMANN

In 1919, the Pasadena Evening Post said: “the friends of Mr. Whiteman have with much enthusiasm bestowed the title of “King of Jazz" upon him." While Paul Whiteman was heavily criticized for wearing the crown, it was not one that was self-attributed or with which he felt completely comfortable. But Whiteman was a brilliant marketer and ...

Matt Wilson Quartet: Hug!

By JEROME WILSON

A hug is something which is a distant memory for most of us these days. The warm and friendly vibes of this new Matt Wilson album could be thought of as a virtual hug, full of smile-inducing swing and raffish humor. Wilson's partners on this excursion are some of his usual cohorts, saxophonist Jeff ...

Matt Wilson: Hug!

By JACK BOWERS

While there are a number of red-letter moments on drummer Matt Wilson's latest album, Hug!, and others that are rather less so, the earnestness is high throughout as everyone in Wilson's seasoned quartet does his best to ensure its success. That success, however, rests in part on the music itself, and therein lies the down side. ...

Matt Wilson Quartet: Hug!

By DAN MCCLENAGHAN

Drummer Matt Wilson's quartet opens Hug! with Gene Ammons' “The One Before This." Saxophonist Ammons often used the tune as a showcase for tenor battles with fellow sax man Sonny Stitt. Wilson and company--featuring cornetist Kirk Knuffke, sax man Jeff Lederer and bassist Chris Lightcap--lay the sound down like a party. And this quartet parties hard. ...

Erroll Garner: Erroll Garner Plays Gershwin & Kern

By CHRIS MAY

The British newspaper The Times once nailed Abdullah Ibrahim's appeal thus: “There are few musicians in jazz who can make you feel that essentially all is right in the world." The late Erroll Garner is another pianist whose music could be similarly described. You might argue that Ibrahim's task is harder, because much of his work ...

Jazz From South Africa - Hugh Masakela, Abdullah Ibrahim, Johnny Dyani (1960 - 1978)

By RUSSELL PERRY

The brutal repression of the subversive mixed-race jazz subculture in South Africa led to the emigration of several important musicians whose work in the United States and Europe helped focus the world's attention on the apartheid regime in the 1960s and 1970's. Prominent among the emigres are pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, who originally recorded as Dollar Brand, ...

Brilliant Corners 2020

By IAN PATTERSON

Brilliant Corners 2020 Various Venues jny:Belfast, N. Ireland February 27 to March 7, 2020 Maybe it's global warming, for just as the first bloom of spring in these strange times appears in February, so too, Brilliant Corners starts ever earlier. From its first, modest edition over three days ...

A Jazz Immuno-Booster: Part 2

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

Our sequestration continues. But so does this mix-tape series featuring music selected by jazz musicians to whom we have asked to share one song they rely on when they need to be uplifted, or soothed, and to make us fly beyond the walls that keep us protected from the greatest pandemic of our generation.

2019: The Year in Jazz

By KEN FRANCKLING

The year 2019 was robust in many ways. International Jazz Day brought its biggest stage to Australia. An important but long-shuttered jazz mecca was revived in a coast-to-coast move. ECM Records celebrated a golden year. The music and its makers figured prominently on the big screen. The National Endowment for the Arts welcomed four new NEA ...