The wonderful South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim tells about the origin of his beautiful, meditative composition “Mannenberg” in the BBC video below. First we get to hear him playing a bit of it in a solo context. Then the camera follows the pianist into the New York jazz club Sweet Basil, where he performs the tune with his band Ekayah. Oh, why couldn’t I have been there that night?
I think if everybody listened to this song once in a while, the world would be a much more peaceful place.
On February 11, 2004–38 years after the the South African government rezoned District Six as a “whites-only” area–former president Nelson Mandela welcomed the first returning residents, Ebrahim Murat (aged 87) and Dan Ndzabela (82), and handed them their keys.
