By Jasper Cook
Abdullah Ebrahim spoke through his piano. It left me speechless, as I am today, in sad times, bad times, on Youth Day.
This was so serious a man, and who lived so long, that it is difficult to consider “Youth” and “Abdullah Ebrahim” in the same sentence. He was not a dance band performer, and had difficulty with “musician” – often referring to us as “supposed musicians”. As he said:
We do not do it to attain fame.
His sound was drama and meditation, bird flight and galloping herds. In Latin, he was all four of piano, forte, sinistra, dextra: soft, loud, left hand, right hand.
His hands would descend to the keys and evoke sounds that would draw in aching veld-love, stately eland on the pastel rock of our mindscapes, a rock gong chorus in our earscapes, a dreunriet hymn, a trance-dance of our mind-feet in ancient sand, all in service of something from the Other Side.
Nobody will ever again make that much rhythm & sound from a piano.
RIP Your Grace.
FEATURED IMAGE: Abdullah Ebrahim (aka Dollar Brand) playing at the Moers Festival in Germany in 2011. (Wikipedia)