Name: Abdullah Ibrahim Trio
Start: 2024-11-17T19:30:00-05:00
Location: Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY, United States, New York 12220

Opening set by Sandhi Trio
Abdullah Ibrahim is South Africa’s most distinguished pianist and a world-respected master musician. 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 American jazz, township jive, and classical music. Out of this blend of the secular and religious, and the traditional and the modern, Abdullah Ibrahim’s distinctive sound and musical vocabulary was born.
Abdullah’s reputation first developed in local Cape Town groups such as the Tuxedo Slickers, as well as his own Dollar Brand Trio in 1958. His groundbreaking septet the Jazz Epistles, formed in 1959, and including the likes of trumpeter Hugh Masakela and trombonist Jonas Gwanga, recorded the first jazz album by South African musicians, Jazz Epistle, Verse 1. Due to the increasingly strict apartheid laws and increased government harassment towards musicians, as well as the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, Dollar Brand left the country with his partner Sathima Bea Benjamin and moved to Switzerland. There, he encountered Duke Ellington, which led to the seminal 1964 recording Duke Ellington presents the Dollar Brand Trio.