Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand)
Tonight I share one of those records that just must be in
every music lover’s collection: African
Marketplace by Dollar Brand as
he was known before he changed his name to Abdullah
Ibrahim.
Brian Ahlberg, an old Minnesota leftie, who last time I
checked was Senator Tom Larkin’s
right hand advisor, a gig he took after the untimely death of America’s most
left leaning recent politician, Senator
Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, introduced me to this record many moons
ago.
At the time Brian and I shared an old rambling house in
South Minneapolis with two musician siblings, a video artist and a neurotic
cat. Like most student houses we rarely saw each other but quite regularly
Brian and I would take turns spinning records for each other late into the
night. He spun many more worthy ones
than I as he had a massive collection from his days of labouring behind the counter of one of
Minneapolis’s hip record shops.
Instantly he played this I fell in love. Mainly because it was music of a hot climate
and I was encaged in the frozen north lands of a wintry America. The loose, almost out of control music with
blasting trombones, trumpets and sax and persistent drumming was about the
closest thing I had heard to an Indian wedding band. I could see the chaos of
the marketplace and the musicians pushing their way through the crowds. There
seemed to be no order to the music except that there were these sweet songlines
that kept reappearing when things seemed about to break at the seams.
This was jazz that wasn’t pretentious but rather earthy and
joyful. Brian (never one to miss an
opportunity to enlighten a political dullard) explained that this fabulous
musician was one of South Africa’s greatest musicians who had been introduced
to the west by none other than Duke
Ellington who saw the young apartheid refugee perform in a Geneva club.
Apartheid was still ‘the system’ in South Africa in the
mid-80’s. Like Makeba and Masakela, Ibrahim was an exile from his beloved country. And there didn’t appear
to be much chance of an early return in those days. Mandela was still years away from being released. I could feel Ibrahim’s deep love and longing for his country in the music and
that feeling is what made this album immediately stand out from the crowd. I
shared a similar longing for the land of my birth and it never fails to bring
alive the memories of childhood.
Track
Listing:
01 Whoza Mtwana
02 The Homecoming Song
03 The Wedding
04 Moniebah
05 African Marketplace
06 Mamma
07 Anthem for the New Nation
08 Ubu-Suku
