Customer Reviews

African Marketplace

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I spent 5 years living, working, and traveling throughout South Africa. My job took me way off the beaten path from dorp to even smaller dorp. This album was in the cassette player of my car...it too was a dub of a dub of a dub.In rotation with Miriam Makeba, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Brenda Fassie, Lucky Dube, ....Dollar Brand and the African Jazz Pioneers offered a more "traditional" alternative to the other more "pop" oriented artists.
You can't imagine the beauty of this music, the rich culture and the beautiful scenery of rural southern africa. Together they evoke the honesty and sincerity of Ibraham's music.
South African music is often slighty off-key,the rythem can be be out of sych.....that's part of the beauty of the material.
Anyone familiar with the culture will recognize how closely this music mirrors the region itself. Years later all I need to do is put this album on, close my eyes, and I'm transported back to the rural reality, beauty, simplicity and complexity of South Africa.
Unless you've lived....understand it....and have a basis for critique....your opinion of "professionalism" matters very little indeed.

I first heard this album on a cassette tape that was a dub of a dub, being played on a tiny tape player--and immediately I recognized that this music was both like nothing I ever heard before and a homecoming all at once. All the sophistication and chops of bebop jazz, with an African beat, and melodies that sound like children's songs. Beautiful choral pieces with fat block church chords; carnival tunes that'll amke you want to move. If I could only have one cd, THIS WOULD BE IT!

There are not too many albums in any genre that paint a consistent picture from the first note to the last. There are even fewer that do this in a hybrid style that is really something new and different. I bless Duke Ellington for bringing Abdullah Ibrahim to our attention, and I thank Mr. Ibrahim for giving us this joyous and colorful recording. The title describes the flavor aptly: the songs are alternately festive and languid, with slightly altered themes recurring throughout. When you play it, don't skip any cuts!

I first heard this album while living in South Africa in 1981. In a room with mainly homeland bound So. Africans there were smiles, laughter, dance, and this music. Big horns, big drums, and big dance. This music and the anthem "God Bless Africa" were the bookends of any get together. It captures that earthy feel, the- in your face-exuberance, the colors, and rythmn of this big land.

African Marketplace was originally released in 1980. It was a delight then, and it is a great delight to have it back on CD. This is the music of South Africa played with a wonderful blend of sophistication and soul, not to mention plenty of energy and exuberance. If you missed this gem by Abdullah Ibrahim the first time around, or if your original LP is warped and scratched, now you can hear this colorful music in all its sonic splendor.

I bought this album after I heard some of his newer material. From what I read in the customers' reviews -and the rate it had- this was suppose to be textured with african rythm, somewhat true to a tribal reality. All that I found close to tribal was the fact that maybe they didn't have perfected enough instruments to be in tuned with each other. I might sound a bit sarcastic saying this and I'm not trying to take anything away from M. Ibrahim's artistic talents but I'm just wonderously appalled to see people so deliberately praising the feeling coming out of it without really analysing and being aware of the professional side of it all. It is just so irritating for me to even try to listen to it as a musician when the dissonant trompet goes on that I won't ever understand why it got 5 stars on the scale. Moreover, to me this doesn't sound African but Spanish, some sort of Hawaian-Mexican-Brazilian mixture of tropical climates' late evening, departing from the restaurant. And there's nothing about the music that would keep you there. Nothing extraordinary, even Ibrahim's performance is unremarkable, me and my friends have done better than that on a summer gathering in the backyard.