Review: Abdullah Ibrahim Revisits the Past at Town Hall

Abdullah Ibrahim, left, with his band Ekaya at Town Hall. Credit Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times

By GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOAPRIL 28, 2017
Since leaving South Africa in the early 1960s to escape apartheid and pursue an international career, the jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim has made music with a sense of tenuous suspension. You could say his is a gospel of near-deliverance.


Mr. Ibrahim’s stark pianism and gently rapturous compositions are steeped in the bright harmonies and bouncing rhythms of his native Cape Town, and they seem to suggest that escape or transcendence could almost be possible. But then there’s the inevitable longing for home, for harmony, for rest. He lives in that balance.

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