Jazz Legend Abdullah Ibrahim Passes Away

The world lost one of its greatest jazz musicians on Monday. Abdullah Ibrahim, the South African pianist and composer whom Nelson Mandela once called “our Mozart”, passed away peacefully in Germany at the age of 91 after a short illness, surrounded by his family. His wife, Marina Umari, confirmed his death on behalf of the family. ‘Abdullah passed away peacefully, with South Africa and its people in his heart,’ she said in a statement. ‘His love for his country never wavered, wherever he was in the world.’

Ibrahim was born Adolph Johannes Brand on 9 October 1934 in Cape Town. His mother played piano in the church of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and her playing formed the young Adolph’s first musical impressions. He began piano lessons at the age of seven and made his professional debut at fifteen, initially performing under the name Dollar Brand. In the late 1950s, he founded the Jazz Epistles, a group that also included trumpeter Hugh Masekela. In January 1960, the ensemble recorded “Jazz Epistle Verse One”, the first jazz album by an entirely Black South African jazz ensemble. In 1963, his then wife and singer Sathima Bea Benjamin introduced him to Duke Ellington, who produced one of his early and influential recordings. After converting to Islam in 1968, he adopted the name Abdullah Ibrahim, marking the beginning of a new phase in his artistic life. Those musical roots extended far beyond jazz alone: marabi, mbaqanga, Cape Town carnival music, gospel, Sufi music and even Indian classical music all left their mark on his compositions.

His best known composition is undoubtedly “Mannenberg”, recorded in June 1974 in a single take, a collective improvisation with saxophonists Basil Coetzee and Robbie Jansen. Named after the township to which so many families from the historic District Six neighbourhood had been forcibly removed, the piece became the unofficial anthem of the South African liberation movement. Ibrahim spent much of the apartheid era in exile in New York, but returned in the early 1990s to a South Africa that welcomed him with open arms. He performed at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration in 1994 and founded the M7 Academy for young South African musicians in 1999. With more than seventy albums to his name, he was regarded as the country’s most acclaimed jazz musician and one of the most important cultural ambassadors South Africa has ever produced.

In March this year, Ibrahim gave his final performance at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, a farewell that in retrospect has taken on special significance. His funeral will take place soon in his home region of Bavaria in southern Germany. Abdullah Ibrahim, South Africa’s Mozart, was 91 years old.

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