He had the silhouette of Mandela, a skinny giant with a serious face, framed by bushy salt and pepper hair: the elegant South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim died on Monday June 15 in Germany at the age of 91, leaving a singular music with the scent of exile from the time of apartheid.
In March, he performed one last time in front of a South African audience at the international jazz festival in Cape Town, his hometown. The pianist “passed away peacefully surrounded by his family in Germany, following a short illness,” his family said in a press release.
A mixed race from the Cape, according to a classification of the segregationist regime which forced him to live between Europe and the United States for decades, Abdullah Ibrahim stood out on stage for the simplicity of his refined playing and his clear melodic lines.
“Sincere” music
He fled South Africa in 1962, the year Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), leader of the movement against apartheid, was arrested and then sentenced to life in prison. But Abdullah Ibrahim maintains a strong link with his country of origin through his music.
Having recorded more than 70 albums, he claimed in 2024 that becoming famous was never a goal. His compositions speak of what he “knows best”, as a high school teacher recommended to him: “My family, my friends, where I grew up”.
His music wants to be “sincere, to commune”, he confided in 2021. “There is no past, no future, just the present moment to which we invite the listener”.
