It is a springtime rite of passage eagerly awaited by jazz enthusiasts. The 2019 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has announced four greats who will join an esteemed group of jazz giants. This year’s honorees are: Stanley Crouch – jazz historian, author, critic, co-founder of...
Abdullah Ibrahim, South Africa’s most distinguished pianist, will be presenting a once-off Master Class as part of his Solo Piano Concert Series in The Fugard Studio Theatre in January 2019. On Wednesday 16 January 2019 at 14h00, Abdullah Ibrahim, world renowned musician whose career spans nearly...
Listen to Abdullah Ibrahim being interviewed on receiving the 2019 Jazz Master Award, and his upcoming tour to South Africa, below: Content hosted by iono.fm...
Dr Billy Taylor narrated an incident when he and Art Tatum after a concert went to hang at a club. A young pianist was playing. When he noticed that Art Tatum was in the house he came over. ‘Mr Tatum what an honour to meet. You have been...
October 18 2018 Gordon Bennett, this is one torturous journey. Granted, the amount of work I’ve had to do beforehand (itself delayed by the amount of work I had to do prior to that) hasn’t helped – but even so, I can’t recall the last time I’ve pegged...
It’s not unusual to have warm and fuzzy feelings for Grandma. Like many, mine brought a sense of calmness into what was an often chaotic family atmosphere. When I refer to other family members it’s often by their first names, but Etta Siegel will always...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwJRIiuJzIk Abdullah Ibrahim performs with John Tchicai, Gato Barbieri, Barre Phillips and Makaya Ntshoko 50 years ago in 1968....
Michael Tshehla Phahlane, the man who gave Soweto its name back in 1963, slipped away quietly two weeks ago without a single mention in local media despite the fact that he was the real doyen of black journalism and one of its finest wordsmiths. He...
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Masters award, bestowed every year since 1982, is often characterized as the United States' highest honor reserved for jazz. This morning the NEA announced four new recipients of the prize: pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim, composer-arranger-bandleader Maria...