JazzTimes – October 2019

JAZZTIMES.COM 27

Africa who were in the audience, and

they started singing with jubilation

and a shout because that tune meant

something to them that it did not mean

to the audience there who had just

come to see the jazz musician Dollar

Brand. When you get in that element,

you really start to see that the music is

way beyond being a sax player on the

stage, playing some tunes and waiting

for your solo.”

Ibrahim’s iconic status was affirmed

when he performed, with a full sym-

phony orchestra, at Nelson Mandela’s

1994 inauguration as president of South

Africa. It was there that Mandela styled

the pianist as South Africa’s answer to

Mozart. “Bach? Beethoven?” Mandela

said. “We’ve got better.”

By the 1980s, Ibrahim was a

respected veteran on the scene in New

York, where he had returned after

arranging a benefit for the banned Af-

rican National Congress had made him

a state target. He frequently performed

as a solo pianist but also had trios and a

large ensemble. His band Ekaya, which

he started in 1983, included high-profile

musicians like bassist Buster Williams

and drummer Ben Riley but also made

room for younger, less experienced

artists—not unlike Art Blakey’s Jazz

Messengers. In fact, a number of Blakey

veterans, including saxophonist Craig

Handy, bassist Essiet Okon Essiet, and

trombonist Robin Eubanks, also passed

through Ibrahim’s ranks.

Being in the band, of course, meant

learning South African rhythms. For

some, it was a challenge, though others

had an easier time. Essiet, for one, was

the son of Nigerian immigrants to the

United States. “South African rhythms

and styles are different from West

African,” he says. “But I could hear it

and relate to it. Abdullah would show

me rhythms and feels from songs that I

had never played before. It was a great

learning experience.”

Young, meanwhile, benefited from a

remarkable coincidence when he audi-

tioned for Ibrahim in 1988. “My aunt

was South African, and my uncle was a

missionary there with the AME church,

part of a group that built churches in

Cape Town,” he says. “One of those

churches is the one that Abdullah

grew up in. He had actually heard my

uncle give sermons as a little boy, but

he didn’t know any of that. But in my

first audition, he told his manager that

when he heard me play it reminded

him of being a little boy sitting in the

AME church in Cape Town. There’s no

way Abdullah could have known about

my family, but he made that comment

about what he heard in my playing, in a

completely unsolicited fashion.” Young

remained with the band, on and off, for
17 years.
For many years, Ibrahim provided
arrangements for the band, though
it was best not to get too comfortable
with them. “We had to make sure we
brought a pencil to rehearsal,” recalls
trombonist Ku-Umba Frank Lacy,
“because sometimes he would come in
and change our parts. He would give us
notes to write—we would do that, too.”
But by 2009, the pianist had done
away with even revisable charts.
“Nobody arranges Abdullah’s music
[now],” says Cleave Guyton, Jr., who
has worked as Ekaya’s musical director
for over a decade. “Because Abdullah
AN might not hear it that way tonight—he

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EA

RL

Recording The

Balance at RAK

Studios in London,

November 2018