Notes from a coloured past

Dressed in white, Abdullah Ibrahim towers over everyone he walks past. This is the jazz pianist's first day in the UAE but he is not distracted as he walks to his seat, keeping his eyes on a grand piano sitting in the lounge of this Abu Dhabi hotel.

“Did you plan this?'' the maestro asks laughing, pointing at the piano.

For a man who has spent much of his life facing the 88 black and white keys, Ibrahim looks at the piano as if sizing it up to see if it could live up to his well-trained hands.

Ibrahim was born in 1934 in Cape Town, which was then a haven for gangsters and druglords.

His parents named him Adolph Johannes Brand because they “believed that giving me a white name would reduce the racial tension and open more doors''. He took his present name when he converted to Islam.

When he was 4, Ibrahim's grandmother observed him trying to play the piano and sent him for lessons.

“Music was at the core of everyday life in South Africa. We had radios in those days, so we grew up listening to music. We would religiously tune in to Music Hour on Voice of America,'' the maestro says.

Ibrahim learnt the basics fast enough to grab the attention of his family and friends. By the time he was in high school, he was playing with bands and appearing in concerts and shows.

“The piano was the only instrument in our church halls and homes because it was the only thing we could afford under the apartheid regime,'' he says.

He dreamt of joining the medical profession but was denied admission to medical school because he was “coloured''.

“You know how they determined whether or not you were coloured?'' he asks, leaning forward.

“They would put a pencil in your hair and ask you to bow your head. If the pencil fell through your hair, you were not white. If the pencil stayed, you were coloured,'' Ibrahim says.

Under apartheid, music was an escape, an expression, a promise of hope and a reason to dance and laugh — at least for a while. When Ibrahim applied to music school, he was again denied admission.

Resilience, combined with passion and skill, pushed him to teach himself. “I couldn't teach myself medicine but I could teach myself the keys,'' he says.

When he felt he had reached the peak of his self-education, he wanted a teacher to take him further. But there was none better than him in Cape Town.

So he set off for Johannesburg — on foot. Three months and 1,200 kilometres later, Ibrahim found himself playing at lounges, clubs and dance halls.

At 25, he decided to travel to Switzerland with his wife-to-be, a jazz singer. “That is where I met John Coltrane and Duke Ellington,'' he says.

He uses the first name when he talks of jazz greats such as Ellington, Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

“One night after a performance at a club in Zurich, a friend brought Duke to listen to us. Duke was the man — we were studying his music. He asked us to play a song for him and that's when things started moving for us,'' Ibrahim says.

Ellington was so impressed with the group that he flew them all to Paris the next day and did their first recording. In 1965 Ellington invited the group to the United States.

“That's when my wife and I decided to stay there. Some went back to Zurich and South Africa but we stayed,'' Ibrahim says.

He travelled across Europe and the UAE playing and finally settled down in New York. He has a home in South Africa but lives in New York with his family.

Much of Ibrahim's music is influenced by the tunes of his childhood. Although he doesn't give much thought to what genre the music he makes is placed, he brings a wide diversity to his music.

“The only reason I play jazz is because I didn't play classical. Jazz gives you more freedom [to play] and more freedom to improvise,'' he says.

The music of Ibrahim's childhood was simple, organised and clearly categorised. Today's music, he says, is much different.

“The boundaries of music have become so blurred.''
Is that a good thing? “Absolutely,'' he says. “This is the age of expression.''

Ibrahim has also picked up the saxophone and the cello. He has also been pursuing martial arts.

“There is no difference. These are arts and the goal is to perfect your act and find how to express yourself in the process,'' he says.

For the past two years, Ibrahim has been an artiste-in-residence with Essen Philharmonic in Germany.

He will spend the next three weeks in the UAE as part of the Abu Dhabi Classics. His performance is scheduled for November 21 at the Emirates Palace terrace.

Asked if he could perform a little solo, Ibrahim looks at the grand piano and the smoke-filled lounge and something about the mood of the afternoon reminds him of his past. “Oh man, I grew up playing in places like this,'' he hesitatingly says. “If I play for you now, then you won't come on November 21.''