Abdullah Ibrahim
African Magic
Enja Tiptoe 43301
recorded 7/13:01, Haus der Welt, Berlin, Ger.
God Willing today we receive the musical messages of the Artist forged in the still growing flames of the end of the middle of his creative fires. This is to say that African Magic, released earlier than now (!), is the finest of statements of what is not yet a late stage of Abdullah Ibrahim's musical project. This somber recognition of the inexorable demands of living and life cycle, nonetheless, acknowledges what can never be guaranteed. A message like this is, on one hand, a gift, and, on the other hand, is a breathed report about a moment of recognition. In the past, perhaps, but also streaming timelessly into the present awareness of the listener. Moments like that are never guaranteed, nor do they provide any guarantee. One breaths in the vibrations and thanks God for the opportunity.
African Magic pulses with veracity. This trio, Belden Bullock on drums and Sipho Kunene on bass, is commensurate with the mission of direct musical transmission. True to the form of what in other hands is merely 'piano jazz,' this crystaline threesome goes beyond the simple measures of rhythm and bass line and accompaniment. In every sense, as the best of recorded Ibrahim outfits do, this African trio has transcended the conventional format. On African Magic, the trio has captured its own art as no other trio of Ibrahim's has done before. Literally, they move as one, together channeling spirits ancient and future.
A fragment of a theme, "Blue Bolero" is interposed between juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated gravities throughout the program. This bears considerable relation to the structure of solo piano programs washed over the listener in waves long past. It is tempting to separate out the different sweeps of playing here into programmatic chapters. However, the players have different ideas that make the notion of an undergirding 'coaglio' impossible. For example, the wave of religious sensibility struck by, first, "Blues for a Hip King" and next by a dedication to a wise teacher, "Tuang Guru" moves surely into the human mode of "District Six". Similarly, the dedication to "Joan - Capetown Flower" is personal, yet, is transmogrified in the traditional echo provided by "Pule," and, in turn, this archaic strain penetrates the modern communal strain of "The Stride".
So it goes. From annunciatory healing to Ellington, through the doorway of solitude, and, rigorously, into the "Eleventh Hour". The call is issued, and, in our late times, is to be heard. The juxtapositions follow, yet this is seemingly only a conceit of 'sequencing'. In truth, this is one record which ends before the listener can know it. Thus, the themes flow more through each other than into each other, finally working the promised ecstatic into the actual ecstatic apotheosis of the ending full version of "Blue Bolero". (Who's to say what the full version really would be?) The end yes, but remaining are the burning echoes.
The attunement of Bullock and Belden to this mission is completely secured and ends up felt lightly. They dance. Their dance is not about personality. This is devotional music, after all. The recent years of discipline and working the music out have also worked out the alchemical procedures to a subtle transmutation of the base properties of what in lesser hands are dialogical musing and foregrounded soloing. Not so here. The players move quickly together and turn about an integration which exemplifies what this African-universal music is really about.
So, the most somber taste ever of "Moten Swing," finds its way right into the heart of a statement of ethos, not personality, "For Coltrane". This is heaven on Earth, and is as it must be. Clothed in the simple materials of Bullock and Kunene's fusion, the rapture here is developed as the human verb itself might develop. The cycles, vast in actuality, are hints. A brief settling on the tracks is instantly made into insight, settling once and for all what truly settles such matters. Where else could this lead but the thanks of "Whoza Mtwana"?
Still, after stillness and praise, the music turns again for another traveling up the gyre. So it goes...into the next determined effort, marked gracefully by Kunene's appraisal of hand on the drums, and the effortless virtuosity of Bullock. Then the finale of bolero; soon over but never ending.
African Magic is essential. It's also a moment of essence captured 'timelessly streaming into the present'. If there aren't guarantees, there is at least breath upon breath, "light upon light," and, more than a little magic in the opportunity provided in the music of three turned into one. This is four, as the alchemist knows it is.
sc 11/03
