African Piano

• Track Listing

This is one of seven historical albums, mastered from original analog sources, issued simultaneously in three media formats - as 180 gram vinyl albums, as CDs, as high-resolution download files. Follow the great arc of music on these early ECM productions, with works for orchestra and improvisers, guitar duo, solo piano, and jazz quartet. Sometimes a musical message is so urgent that questions of recording quality are almost beside the point. Informally recorded in 1969 in a noisy club - Copenhagen's famous Jazzhus Montmartre - the flavour of this album is 'documentary' rather than luxuriantly hi-fidelity, yet the essence of Abdullah Ibrahim's communication comes through loud and clear. The listener is drawn into the robust rhythms of his solo piano style, as he re-examines the history of jazz from a South African perspective, with echoes of songs of the townships, and vamps that hint of Monk and Duke and much more. African Piano was a highly influential album, and it has lost none of it's power.

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