World Music Institute to Present Abdullah Ibrahim 90th Birthday Celebration

World Music Institute and The 92nd Street Y, New York will present the 90th birthday celebration of a true living legend, South African jazz pioneer Abdullah Ibrahim. Recognized as South Africa's most distinguished pianist, Ibrahim is a world renowned master musician, who's performed and recorded with everyone from Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba to Duke Ellington, Max Roach, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. He made history as a musician, and also bore witness to the injustice of the apartheid regime, both at home and in exile. His anti-apartheid anthem "Mannenberg" has come to be regarded as an unofficial national anthem in South Africa, and when he performed at Nelson Mandela's inauguration, Mandela referred to him as "our Mozart".

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 Ibrahim's career began in local Cape Town groups and his Dollar Brand Trio in 1958. He formed the groundbreaking Jazz Epistles septet in 1959, alongside such future luminaries as saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi and trumpeter Hugh Masekela.. The group recorded the first South African jazz album Of this historical recording, Ibrahim explains that the ensemble's work was "inspired by American jazz musicians and popular songs but most importantly the legitimacy and vibrancy of our own African tradition".

But jazz also symbolized resistance, with mixed-race bands and audiences defying the increasingly strict apartheid laws, so the government cracked down, closing clubs, harassing musicians, and forcing many into exile. In 1962, with Nelson Mandela imprisoned and the ANC banned, Ibrahim and his wife left the country, and took up residence in Zürich, where he met Duke Ellington. Ellington was so impressed with Ibrahim's Dollar Brand Trio that he invited them to record in Paris and the rest is history.

Still a vital and active performer today, Ibrahim's most recent album 3 was released to critical acclaim earlier this year. NPR hailed 3 as "a massive double album" and The Financial Times called it as "Ibrahim at his best"

WMI's COUNTERPOINT series focuses on contemporary artists who push the boundaries of what "world music" can mean in the 21st Century.