The Dollar Brand Trio

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The Dollar Brand Trio was the name under which the South African pianist Dollar Brand performed in Europe in the early 1960s. He was born in Cape Town in 1934 as Adolph Johannes Brand and grew up in the city's harbour districts, where he heard marabi, mbaqanga, church music and American jazz. Later, as a Muslim, he took the name Abdullah Ibrahim.

Music and breakthrough

In 1962 he moved to Europe. His future wife, the singer Sathima Bea Benjamin, persuaded Duke Ellington, who was on tour in Zurich, to come and listen to the trio at the Africana Club in February 1963. Ellington was impressed and helped arrange a recording session with Reprise Records. The result was the record Duke Ellington presents The Dollar Brand Trio. It was an important step in an international career: Brand went on to play at many European festivals, and in 1965 he moved to New York.

Influence

His piano playing shows the influence of Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington, mixed with African and Cape music. In 1974 he recorded Mannenberg in Cape Town, a piece that became an anthem against apartheid. Ibrahim is regarded as the most important figure of Cape jazz. The Zurich trio belongs at the start of that story, when a musician from South Africa brought his own sound into the jazz world.

Listening

In School of Rock

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