# CD review: Abdullah Ibrahim – Solotude 2021: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2021/12/02/abdullah-ibrahim-solotude-2021-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2021-12-02T17:39:27+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Abdullah Ibrahim’s solo recital was recorded live at the Hirzinger Hall in South
Germany, sometime during lockdown. The octogenarian South African pianist, almost
alone in the concert hall, is playing for no one in particular – or perhaps for 
the absent ones.**

What is the most striking is the joyous, radiant loveliness infusing each of the
twenty tracks – these are dreamy yet never unfocused, soulful without being sentimental,
and beautiful in a plain, unadorned way.

Ibrahim repeats patterns and fragments from old compositions, getting entirely absorbed
in their repetition – to the point of disappearing. But the threat of disappearance
makes the performance all the more poignant. And if music is time, Solotude gently
suggests it is also timelessness – the quiet knowledge that beauty always survives
itself.

01. Mindiff
 02. Trieste My Love 03. Nisa 04. Blue Bolero 05. In-Tempo 06. Dreamtime
07 Blue Bolero (First Reprise) 08. Peace 09. Blues For A Hip King 10. District 6
11. Tokai 12. District 6 (Reprise) 13. Pula 14. Sotho Blue 15. Blue Bolero (Second
Reprise) 16. Did You Hear That Sound? 17. In The Evening 18. Once Upon A Midnight
19. The Wedding 20. Signal On The Hill

**Abdullah Ibrahim piano**

![Solotude - Abdullah Ibrahim](https://i0.wp.com/abdullahibrahim.co.za/wp-content/
uploads/2021/09/SOLOTUDEartwork_40ffc76c-2593-43e3-b2c1-6efa01a8eb9c_1024x1024%402x.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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