Abdullah Ibrahim

Jazz pianist, born in Cape Town, SW South Africa. His group, Jazz Epistles, recorded the country's first black jazz album (1960). He was invited by Duke Ellington (1962) to work in the USA. Since then, he has worked as a soloist and leader in America and Europe, notably in the 1980s with his septet Ekaya (‘Home’). He also plays cello, soprano saxophone, and flute, and is remarkable for his jazz interpretations of the melodies and rhythms of his African childhood. He adopted his Muslim name in the 1970s.

Abdullah Ibrahim (born 1934, Cape Town, South Africa), formerly known as Adolph Johannes Brand, and as Dollar Brand (from a popular brand of matches), is a South African pianist and composer.

He first received piano lessons at the age of seven, was an avid consumer of jazz records brought by American sailors, and was playing jazz professionally by 1949. In 1959 and 1960, he played alongside Kippie Moeketsi with The Jazz Epistles in Sophiatown before joining the European tour of the musical King Kong.

In 1962 during a tour of Europe, Duke Ellington heard “The Dollar Brand Trio” playing in Zürich's “Africana Club”. Since then he has toured mainly in Europe, the United States, and in his home country, South Africa.

He briefly returned to South Africa in the mid-1970s after his conversion to Islam (and the resultant change of name from Dollar Brand to Abdullah Ibrahim); While in South Africa, however, he made a series of recordings with noted Cape Town jazz players (including Basil Coetzee and Robbie Jansen). This included Coetzee's masterpiece, "Mannenberg", acknowledged by most as one of South Africa's greatest musical compositions; Since the end of apartheid, he now lives in South Africa and divides his time between his global concert circuit, New York, and South Africa.

Abdullah Ibrahim is a towering figure in South African music, an artist who brings together all its traditions with a deeply felt understanding of American jazz, from the orchestral richness of Duke Ellington's compositions for big band to the groundbreaking innovations of Ornette Coleman and the 1960s avant-garde.

Ibrahim has worked as a solo performer, typically in mesmerising unbroken concerts that echo the unstoppable impetus of the old marabi performers. Since his triumphant return to South Africa in the early 1990s, he has been feted with symphony orchestra performances, one of which was in honour of Nelson Mandela's installation as President. He has also founded a school for South African musicians in Cape Town.

With his wife, the jazz singer Sathima Bea Benjamin, he is father to the New York underground rapper Jean Grae, as well as to a son, Tsakwe.