Water From an Ancient Well

I’ve never really got into Abdullah Ibrahim’s jazz. I’m afraid “Water from an Ancient Well” isn’t going to change that. It’s all very well played, but overall Ibrahim’s playing (or that of his band) strikes me as too polished, too well-behaved, too clean. The solos, confined to strict blues patterns, are predictable. I’m missing that final spark. The last four tracks from “Tuang Guru” to "Sameeda" stand out a little. But, as I said, overall it’s too well-behaved for my taste. Not bad, but not my kind of jazz.

Thoroughly pleasant. It’s such a smooth, easy-listening time. It’s not ever going to massively grab my attention, but it doesn’t need to. It’s just a nice listen, and that's ok.

3.5 rounded up.

It's nice. 3/5.

This wasn’t available on my streaming service. I like some of his other stuff that I’ve heard.

Apple Music didn't have this, but I found it on Bandcamp.

The thing that stands out to me here are the melodies. They are novel yet familiar and unpretentious.

Jazz can be DIFFICULT, and can become really academic. Ibrahim counters this with solid compositions and tight orchestration that don't rely too heavily on improvisation to make their point. Even the 11 minute title track doesn't go off the rails, but stays within its own melodic framework while trading eights (or sixteens? I don't know) among all the horn players. There's no showboating. Everyone is playing to the tune. A really pleasant listen.

Nice background music, but that's all it is for me. Where's the drama x

jazz beeeeeeeem tranquilinho, gostosinho demais
coisa boa. foi bem relaxante!!

after the first two songs i was ready to question myself as to whether i do enjoy jazz after all. the rest of the album however proved i don‘t.

Jammer dat het niet ieeetsje avontuurlijker is. Verder wel een heerlijke jazzplaat met mooie arrangements.

Sound track for a guy walking around a rundown town and reminiscing. Would have gone hard during COVID.

Tedious.

A fine time. Low 4

A will always rock with a nice jazz album

Beautiful stuff on here. But lingers on.

Water From An Ancient Well by Abdullah Ibrahim leans fully into jazz territory—perhaps more so than anything else I’ve listened to recently. I’ll be honest: I’m not qualified enough to judge whether this is good jazz or bad jazz in any technical sense. I can only judge it on how it made me feel, and unfortunately, it didn’t connect with me at all.

Like most jazz I’ve tried, I found it difficult to engage with. The album felt slow, meandering, and oddly impersonal—more like background music than something I actively wanted to listen to. At times it even reminded me of a cartoon soundtrack, pleasant enough in places but never gripping or memorable. Overall, it reinforced my long-held feeling that jazz often sounds like music designed to fill space rather than demand attention—something you’d hear in a lift rather than seek out at home.

Favourite track: If I absolutely had to choose, The Wedding. It was quite nice, I suppose, and more approachable than the rest.
Least favourite track: The rest of the album—it all blended together for me without leaving much of an impression.

In short, while I can appreciate that Water From An Ancient Well is likely respected within jazz circles, it simply isn’t for me, and I won’t be returning to it.
Album artwork: Its quite a nice album cover

Jazzzzzz

As someone who's not particularly into jazz, this album almost lost me on the very first track, which I could have easily believed was from some royalty-free stock music collection that you'd hear in a jazz club scene in some low budget movie from the 80s. Just a generic, swinging jazz tune that doesn't inspire much of a reaction one way or the other. However, it's immediately followed up by what I thought was the best track on the record, Song For Sathima, a soothing and contemplative arrangement with some excellent piano melodies. Maybe it's just a personal preference, but I did find the more sombre, piano-focused tracks like that a lot more enjoyable than the swinging ensemble pieces.

Thankfully that level of variety on show here was able to salvage the poor first impression I received, and on the whole I ended up enjoying listening to the record, even though I think it's ultimately not really my thing. I doubt I'll ever listen to it again. Sorry jazz fans; got nothing against you or your music, but we're just from two different worlds.

Favourite tracks: Song For Sathima, Manenberg Revisited, The Mountain

Some nice background jazz. Didn't really grab onto me, but was pleasant enough.

Great jazzy album

While this isn't my wheelhouse for jazz, and I know very little about Cape Jazz in general, this was still pretty decent. I don't know how to rate this *really*: it doesn't do a ton for me personally, and I don't see myself really returning to this, but there is an undeniable level of musicianship, and some emotive melody writing. This isn't bad, not at all, it just also isn't that interesting to me. I even think some of the longer winded passages drag on a little (even if the solos dotting these passages are usually pretty good). But I did manage to get something more out of Song For Sathima, Tuang Guru, wedding, and Sameeda. Also, parts of the title track (and others, sporadically) are really good. But it is also worth noting that my favorite song here is the shortest (Wedding). This is a situation where I'm sure that a more experienced Cape Jazz fan would get more out of this than me. At risk of feeling a little mean, I'm giving this a (pretty high) 2: it's nothing personal, and I'm sure this is of some level of objective importance, I just didn't get a whole lot out of the experience.