Abdullah Ibrahim's 'The Balance' is worth adding to your album collection

Abdullah Ibrahim has, at the ripe old age of 84, a new album out, The Balance (Gearbox Records). This collection, recorded in London with his band, Ekaya, in a single day in November last year, combines old and new tunes.

Reviews have been positive: as one critic noted, audiences have certain expectations of the legendary Cape jazz pianist and composer, and this one won't disappoint. There are township-flavoured tunes, like Jabula, as well as "jazz from the canon", in a reworked version of Skippy, Thelonious Monk's 1952 bebop mindbender. 

A far better showcase, however, of the man's work is African Marketplace (Elektra), released in 1980 under his old Dollar Brand alias. It is one of Ibrahim's most colourful and accessible band recordings, eight folklike original compositions that are wonderfully evocative of a long-lost Cape Town cultural life.

Granted, the man's best-known record is 1974's Mannenberg 'Is Where It's Happening' (Sun), but this is the far better album, and an ideal starting point in collecting Ibrahim's work.