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Finding Your Unique Voice

In 1960, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, then known as Dollar Brand, together with his band The Jazz Epistles recorded the first jazz LP by black South African musicians. Over the intervening five decades, spent mostly in Europe and the U.S.A., Ibrahim, who turns 76 this year, has distinguished himself as one of the most distinctive and acclaimed voices in jazz. As a solo performer, with his various bands or in orchestral settings, his music is marked by a characteristic exquisiteness that has much to do with a deeply spiritual approach that informs his technique. As one critic writes, "What the jazz connoisseur perceives as a maximum of musical reduction to the essence of expression is for the listener unfamiliar with jazz simply disarmingly beautiful music."

SGI Quarterly: Jazz, from the time it originated, seems to be a mentoring tradition in which of older, more experienced musicians pass on their skills and knowledge to younger musicians.

Abdullah Ibrahim: Yes. There are certain things that one cannot really learn in a classroom, whether it be a school classroom or in a music conservatory or jazz school.

The institution is passed on from one generation to another and we acknowledge those masters who were trailblazers before us and show us the way, and we pass on this knowledge to a younger generation.

In jazz my mentors were, and still are, people whose names might not mean anything to anybody. And then, of course, there are the recognized masters who I have had the fortune and joy to work with, to share their presence and learn from: Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry. We all became close friends. And in South Africa, people like Kippie Moeketsi, the saxophonist and clarinetist. He was the one who endorsed that we were on the right path in exploring our inherent African culture.

SGIQ: Can you talk a little about what you learned from some of those people?

AI: Well, it might sound bizarre! Things are normally passed on as anecdotes, in the vein of passed-on stories of the great masters. For example, someone asked Ellington, "Duke, how do you manage to keep all these great musicians playing in your band for such a long time?" And Duke said, "I've found a gimmick. I give them money!" So there is a very esoteric level, but he brings you down to earth immediately. Ornette Coleman was asked, "Who can give us advice on how to handle contracts?" And Ornette said, "Oh, it's very easy. If they give you a quote, ask them just to add another zero at the end. It's not very hard!" Then there's the story of [saxophonist John] Coltrane, when he went to play with Miles Davis. Trane used to take these long solos, chorus after chorus. Miles said he used to go sit at the bar while Coltrane was playing. Eventually he said, "Hey, John, why don't you play shorter solos, man?" And Trane said, "Miles, the music is so beautiful, I get carried away. I don't know how to stop." And Miles said, "Have you tried taking the horn out of your mouth?"

So we learn from the masters this very basic principle of what in martial arts we call omote: the hidden and the obvious. It's the same principle in martial arts. I've been studying martial arts for close to close to fifty years. My teacher is in Japan, Soke Yokyu Tonegewa sensei, and his system is Yakami no Taijitsu.

The principle of what is hidden and what is obvious. Another example of it is: there was a lady pianist in New York who used to transcribe John Coltrane's recorded solos. When she gave them to him, he said, "I can't play them, they're too difficult!"

Mostly we are concerned with what is obvious. People go through life and tend to focus 90 percent on what is obvious and 10 percent on what is hidden. For us it's the other way round. It's 10 percent obvious and 90 percent hidden.

So it's not really necessary to show off the technique. Although we think we are very prolific technicians--I mean, we practice 25 hours a day . . . But it's not necessary to display it. The principle is to make your intention so clear and so sincere, that striking that one note will say everything.

I think it's a principle that exists in everything, where one strives for unattainable perfection. One strives anyway, whether it's music or martial arts, or anything, everything that you do. I've found in my travels and meeting people of all persuasions, all religions, people with all different philosophies, inherently there is that basic principle, and it pervades everything.

SGIQ: When you're working with younger and less experienced musicians, are you conscious of trying to pass on or convey something to them while you're working?

AI: No. I just let them play.

I let them interpret the song the way they perceive it. When I started off in South Africa, very few jazz units existed. And when I played with the dance bands, they would always say, "That's not the way you're supposed to sound." There are millions and millions of people on the planet, yet I can hear your voice anywhere and recognize it. So each one of us has our own unique voice, and the idea is to find it. And once you've found it, you've struck your path. And I guess it's the same in all disciplines and all belief systems.

We have a project in South Africa where we were given the task to create a new orchestra. We just had auditions in Johannesburg a couple of weeks ago. Unbelievable talent! Young people with another approach and another consciousness of their being and where they're going with the music. It was quite wonderful.

SGIQ: You said there were certain things that can't be passed on in schools and conservatories when it comes to learning this tradition. What are those things and how are they passed on?

AI: Well, you have to actually play the music. It is the process of overcoming fear. When you improvise you are going into uncharted waters, going to a place where you've never been before, and it's terrifying.

You can only learn by playing. We'll play a song inside out. We'll work with one song maybe for six months, or 20 years, leave it and then come back to it. You look at all angles and aspects of that specific song. And then, when you improvise, you have freedom. It's the knowledge that will give you that sense of freedom. It's the same principle with martial arts.

SGIQ: You say you're not actively trying to teach your musicians, but I guess that that they're learning from you. In terms of a mentorship tradition in jazz, do you think that it's more about that seeking spirit of the student than someone setting themselves up as the teacher?

AI: Master Tonegawa last year gave me the eighth dan, or degree, which is the license to teach. I asked him, "Master, why do you give me this? I don't know anything." And he said, "That's why I gave it to you. Because me also, I don't know anything!"

So with the music, for example my bass player Belden Bullock and my drummer George Gray from New York, we've been playing together for 14, 15 years. And with some of the songs it's only now that we begin to understand what is happening inside.

So I don't actually teach, because in some senses you cannot teach. You can only create a conducive environment for people to be able to progress and proceed on their own. And for us, actually, the structure that you learn from is the song itself, because you are always looking at new ways to approach it, how to improvise. John Coltrane used to say that if he was playing a solo and he realized that he was playing something he'd played before, he would stop.

SGIQ: When one thinks about the great masters of jazz that you've talked about, as well as their musicianship what comes to mind is their great personalities, the character behind the music. I wonder if it is the impact of the mentor's character as much as anything else that helps carry the tradition forward.

AI: Well, exactly. Because of the specific character of that person, he or she has found their own voice, and that is what makes their music so vibrant.

I remember [drummer] Max Roach telling me that they were in New York recording with Abbey Lincoln. Abbey was in the studio trying to sing this song and she was having problems. They were struggling for hours. And [pianist Thelonious] Monk walked in and went into the booth and spoke to her and then left. Then she had another take and immediately she had it. Afterward she said, "Who was that weird guy that came in and spoke to me?" And they said, "That was Monk. What did he say?" "He said, 'sing it wrong.'"

You see we have the same information as classical musicians--because music is basically the same principle--only we have overcome the fear of not making a mistake. Like master Tonegawa says, "When you make a mistake, make a good mistake!"

SGIQ: When you're making music, what is that you're hoping to convey? What is making music for you?

AI: It's not to think about it. Once you think about what you want to achieve, it's lost. In budo we call it "no mind." How to achieve this--it takes years of training. That instant of improvisation is the point where time and space meet. So it's impossible, if you say "play it again" --I can't play it again. It's like noh theater, or when you perform a kata in martial arts. It's impossible to repeat it because it's that moment that is captured.

SGIQ: It sounds to me then like developing as a jazz musician is very much an individual struggle and journey. Is it really about mentorship?

AI: It is. But that's the mentorship that is passed on. You cannot put it in concrete terms. Every musician will tell you something that the master said that means such a lot to them and helped them in a specific way.

The mentorship actually comes from you studying their music; because it's about music. So if you take an Ellington piece--I was fortunate because when I was in South Africa I played some of his pieces before I met him. But it was great meeting with him because then we spent hours and hours with him and asked questions about specific songs. So the mentorship is actually in you studying their work. Then, if you are fortunate to meet with them and spend some time with them, it's invaluable. And then, as I say, it's passed on in the least expected way.

SGIQ: Tell us about your center in South Africa and what you're doing there.

AI: We created a project called M7, which is all-encompassing--music, movement, medicine, martial arts, meditation, menu (nutrition), masters. It's a holistic concept, and we're practitioners from all over the world. We started this project in Cape Town, and now we have sponsorship from the Department of Arts and Culture in South Africa for the musical development program. So we go all over the country creating or activating the music aspect of it.

Earlier this year we bought an 800 ha farm in what is called the green Kalahari. It's in the Kalahari [desert] but it has this amazing feature of underground water, and surface water, so it's green. This is where we are going to locate the main body of this project. About two hours drive from the farm there is a cave that is estimated to be 2.5 million years old. From carbon dating they can tell that people settled there as early as 850,000 years ago. The descendents of those people are the Bushmen; my grandmother's people. We're working with the Bushmen people because they have such an incredible knowledge of the Earth, the animals and plants for healing. We're working with them and our international practitioners to create this center that will include a broad spectrum of the activities.

I asked sensei Tonegawa, what should we call this farm, and he said "Furosato," which means spiritual home--the spiritual home of humanity.

We will be bringing people from everywhere, and also sending our practitioners out from there, practitioners in all disciplines. We have homeopaths, osteopaths, ayurveda practitioners, traditional Chinese medicine, orthopedic surgeons--these are all people we've met over the years.

SGIQ: What inspired you to do this?

AI: Speaking to people everywhere, we find that there is a groundswell of this feeling that there must be an alternative, a way toward contributing to our fullest. Right now it seems that we actually live to not even 20 percent of our full potential.

SGIQ: Getting back to the music, what do you see as the role of the musician in society?

AI: Well, this is precisely why we're creating this project. Because, in traditional culture, music was an integral part of everyday life. It was not something that you went to. So what we're doing is we're trying to reestablish this kind of--for lack of a better word--lifestyle, where all is included; because music is actually a healing force.

In traditional society, music and healing are almost the same principle. We have no clear understanding of how it works. With my music, for example doctors told us that they used my music in one instance where they brought a young girl out of coma who had been comatose for three years. People come up to us and say the music has started them on the way to healing. Music was always part of the healing discipline. But nowadays we find ourselves to be entertainers.

This is the idea behind Furusato, this holistic approach. We feel there should be a way to integrate all of these activities into one unit, with music as the core; because music transcends all barriers.

SGIQ: What do you think it is that makes music function as a healing force? Do you think all music is like that, or is it something to do with the intent of the music? Because there are lots of different types of music, and differences in quality . . .

AI: All music is healing, all the different kinds of music, because we are all different entities and characters. So what for me might seem like something very esoteric and heart rending, for somebody else can just be plain dumb! The beauty of music is that in all its forms and all its guises it serves all people. In fact it serves everything, because you're dealing with sound.

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