Thanks for this. One of my favorite songs of all time and I couldn't find it anywhere

Gina Martin is my great aunt ❤ I called her Tía Gina and, as you can probably imagine, she was candela🔥 definitely the fun aunt 😂

Takes me back to Philly and WRTI in the 70s. Such a great groove.

I just love this.

The Watchers made their move, I fought them but I came out of it with a broken jaw - Carl Elton Winds 1977 Jersey City, NJ

I've had a hard time recalling any period in my life when jazz wasn't playing. Whether I liked the music or not, my parents played jazz, and I was subject to it. I always struggled to understand what it was that my parents heard in it. The music seemed to slip through my understanding as soon as it played. How mysterious it was that something so elusive, something that never struck a chord within me, could so deeply move and fill my parents. One record that spun particularly often at home was Capetown Fringe by the South African jazz pianist Dollar Brand (now Abdullah Ibrahim). The song Capetown Fringe played on any occasion, whether in quiet moments at home or during euphoric weekend gatherings with my parents’ circle - it seemed there was never a wrong time for The Fringe. Much later, my father explained that the song symbolized exile for him, a reminder of the sadness of living in foreign lands and the hope of one day, perhaps, returning home. When Capetown Fringe was released in the mid-70s, Abdullah Ibrahim himself was in exile from South Africa. The song became something of an international hymn for the anti-apartheid struggle. And all this without a single lyric. Capetown Fringe is a 14-minute distillation of the South Africa that was, and the South Africa that its oppressed people hoped it would be. It's an unrelenting jazz groove crowned alternately by piano and sax solos, somehow conveying the feelings of despair, sorrow, pain, and the droplets of hope needed to give life any semblance of meaning. But I didn’t understand any of this back then. To be honest, I’m not sure I fully understand it even now. But Capetown Fringe made an impression on me. In 1994, at 24 years old and 14 years after my last memory of the song, I rediscovered Capetown Fringe. At a local jazz bar in Dakar, Senegal, I heard the song that, in a strange and unintentional way, had become the soundtrack of my childhood. “What a coincidence,” I tried to explain to my friend. But he had a hard time grasping what I meant. Was it the song? Our presence in the jazz bar? Or was it just that the coincidence seemed so immense on that particular night? “You’re high,” laughed a pair of red eyes at me, to the music. “No, the song,” I replied to my hazy friend, “the music had been an unsolved mystery for so long. This wasn’t just a trip,” I tried to convince him. Everything seemed so clear now. I not only understood the music in Capetown Fringe, but jazz - no, life itself. But as soon as the music stopped, my understanding faded. Not madness, but more like my comprehension existed as long as the music played - as long as I held my breath. It was as if my thoughts were in my breath, and in the moment I exhaled, this crystal-clear insight into life evaporated, only to disappear into the void. That year in Dakar, many attempts were made to reclaim this understanding. I got hold of a CD version of Capetown Fringe that I played endlessly at my confused friend’s place. Together, we grew lungs like deep-sea divers. But I never seemed to get very deep into my thoughts. “Ca veut dire quoi ça?” my friend, who was nonetheless following along, wondered. Yes, what did it all mean? Why was it so difficult to grasp what seemed so crystal clear at certain moments? My search led me to lose the thread, to forget what I was even looking for: Why does jazz, like Abdullah Ibrahim’s, touch us, and why is life the way it is? It may all sound overly pretentious, but reality is less grand than that. A few years ago, I stumbled upon something that made me see things more clearly. The nameless narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man sits in his basement, eating his favorite dessert - vanilla ice cream soaked in sloe gin - and listening to jazz. In the prologue, we learn that the man in the basement listens to Louis Armstrong because Armstrong managed to create poetry by making himself invisible in the music. The narrator describes what it’s like to listen to Armstrong’s music while high on marijuana. The power of the music, like the drug’s effect, lies in its ability to alter not only time but also space. ”The unheard sounds came through, and each melodic line existed of itself, stood out clearly from all the rest, said its piece, waited paitaintly for the other voieces to speak. That night I found myself hearing not only in time, but in space as well. I not only entered the music but descended, like Dante, into its depths. The nameless narrator breathes life into a sorrowful piece of music-his own life; made invisible because he is Black, erased by a society that fails to see him as an individual. His invisibility obliterates his existence, rendering him nameless, both in the story and for the reader. The life drama performed by the "soloist" in the basement speaks of a world where the melody of the day is to "make it up as you go along." Jazz, like life, becomes most fascinating in moments of improvisation and unpredictability. But living as an improviser is no simple feat, and it's not easy to be authentic in a world where reason seems to falter. “Invisibility alters one’s sense of time,” the jazz and ice cream lover contemplates, high and gasping for authenticity. “You’re never quite in sync. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.” It's exhausting to have the ability to see around corners and hear notes and sounds that shouldn’t exist. That’s why the narrator chooses to escape this inferno. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to listen when I first heard Capetown Fringe. And when the song resurfaced at the bar in Dakar, I didn’t just sense the music-I felt the nostalgia and absence of it. Music, in general, has the power to stir the senses. But jazz does something more. Jazz lays bare reality in the most honest and imaginable way. The protagonist, Antoine Roquentin, in Jean-Paul Sartre’s hallucinatory novel Nausea, realizes that the things around him are created by his own perception. Color is just a thought, and purple is merely an inadequate name for something he has never truly seen. He concludes that the "essence" of objects is just a convenient shell meant to cover the inexplicable nakedness of existence. And this without Roquentin taking a single puff of smoke. Instead, he relies on artistic creation to better understand himself. Rather than succumbing to despair, he finds inspiration in music. A jazz record convinces him to confront the bare truth of existence and to write a novel. Finally, I can exhale-truly!

I have been trying to find this song for YEEEEEAAAARRSS!!! 🎉🎉

All time favorite!❤️

Rodney Dopplerr, MANY THANX !

WRVR NYC - worlds great jazz station played this regularly. Loved it then and love it today!

I was in Jersey City , NJ with a broken jaw from a fight when Cape Town Fringe came out. It kept me going.

Play it somewhere between 45 and 33 I bet it would sound even more awesome.

A wonderful find - haven't heard the original since 1970's and never this excellent❤ mix

This record saw many blessed Christmas dinners in my house growing up! ❤️ love and blessings to all!

slammer this slowmo version just hits so much harder

❤

This tune had always put me in a perfect groove every time I would listen to it. Beautiful, man...

WONDERFUL : I HAVENT HEARD THAT IN 40 YEARS !!!!! .... AND I do not forget a GOOD THING .....🌅🌅

Mannenberg - forever a foundation around which many legends were formed: According to Ibrahim, a record with the song was smuggled by a lawyer to the prison island of Robben Island & played over the central loudspeaker system there. The piece is said to have sparked encouragement & hope among political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela. ⚓️ In front of the recording studio in Cape Town is a sculpture made of seven stainless steel tubes that, when struck with a stick, produce Mannenberg's first seven notes.🪄🎹✌🏻😎

first i didnt hear the michael jackson bassline... uplifting groover :)

Rodney Dopplerr: thanks for posting. Cheers!

I lob 0

Happy birthday, Abdullah Ibrahim! (Oct. 9/22)

Been looking for this song for years

Thanks so much for posting.

Up there with the best of the Jazz genre!!!

High life

NICE

Ezingasoze zabuna

One of my favourite record, unfortunately impossible to get it on Spotify

Very relaxing!

98/99

I had to pull my car over and stop when I first heard this on the radio in San Francisco in the late 1970's it was so beautiful. Magnificent music.

OMG! I have been trying to find this album for a long long time...it is one of my favorites from my childhood! Is there any way you have converted the entire album or know where i can get it?

Haaibo❤

And i thank you.

Scott Muni WNEW FM New York played this song back in the late 70’s on hot summer afternoons. That seems to be the only time I play this song now. Reminds me of the old days.

Thank you. Why can't we get this kind of music on CD? Same thing with "African Drums." There's a world of music - of sound - outside of mainstream commercial crap! Loved the "old days." DB, Jamal, so many more. Help!!!

like your taste man. youve got some great stuff on here

Bud sweat is a gorgeous track too but this might actually be the cut to buy this release for

thanks for posting this. I just love everything on Separe recordings in this time frame of 2000-2004 such warm beautiful music that grows on you and has replay value

Amazing what three instruments can achieve in beautiful Harmony

perfect sound! perfect groove! the world needs more of this, today & in future

A true masterpiece of deep house, going crazy at 5:50 <3

2020 Tribute kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYfShmx5r7aFlZI

Stephen [email protected]

Hit mania dance 1994, n12 cd1!!!

Manenberg.

Do you have more information about this artist? I've been looking around online and it's almost impossibile to find some good info.

sounds just like the vibe of cape town. awesome