The Song Is My Story

The venerable South African composer and pianist Abdullah Ibrahim—known as Dollar Brand early in his career—has been releasing distinctive albums for more than half a century. Ibrahim celebrates his 80th birthday and the 20th anniversary of the end of apartheid on *The Song Is My Story*, a solo album recorded in Italy in 2014. Featuring original compositions from the \'50s, \'60s, and \'70s and pieces that were completely improvised in the moment, *Song* is both a retrospective and an embracing of the here-and-now that\'s at the heart of jazz. Ibrahim nicely opens and closes the album with two brief statements on saxophone.