Balance 2019

Abdullah Ibrahim - The Balance (2019) {Gearbox Records GB1554CD}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 229 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 98 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 26 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2019 Gearbox Records | GB1554CD
Jazz / Post Bop / Contemporary Jazz / Cape Jazz / Piano

Abdullah Ibrahim's discography goes back sixty years, and although there are longer periods between his releases than there used to be, Ibrahim has retained all his grit and jubilance. The pianist and composer continues to make gloriously uplifting music steeped in its South African roots, in a style which still carries echoes of his formative overseas influences, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.

At the age of 84, Abdullah Ibrahim (AKA Dollar Brand) is set to release his first new album in four years. Entitled 'The Balance', this project features his long-time septet Ekaya, a line-up that he's been recording with since 1983. In this case, the album was recorded over the course of one day at London's RAK Studios last November. The lush horn lines, lilting melodies, and uplifting chord progressions are characteristic of Abdullah's own particular brand of Township Jazz. This is contrasted with various solo piano improvisations, which epitomise the nostalgic yet hopeful nature of Abdullah's musical spirit. Hence, The Balance.

After 4 years of work on their 11th release for ReR, this extraordinary, reclusive, and highly individual audio-visual collective continues to evolve through the painstaking accumulation and disposition of a seemingly incompatible range of both exotic and familiar musical languages, instruments, techniques and studio manipulations into one of the few genuinely original bands at work today. It took a long time to refine their unique process of composition to this level of ambiguity and depth and newcomers will wonder how they strayed so far from orthodoxy and yet managed to retain a lucidity and transparency that is quite rare in contemporary music.