Newark, Abdullah Ibrahim concert

I had already landed in Newark as an exchange student in 1987/88 (and flew back to Germany from there almost a year later). However, I had hardly seen anything of the city at the time other than the airport and the route to Pennsylvania.

This time I deliberately chose the city as my place of residence and starting point for trips to New York for a few days. The hard facts include that the city has a good 300,000 inhabitants, is part of the New York City metropolitan region and is predominantly inhabited by African Americans.

I live within walking distance of bus route 107, which takes me to the world's largest bus station, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, in 30 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on traffic. The buses arrive and depart here on several floors and serve regional and long-distance services to the USA, Canada and Mexico. NJ (New Jersey) Transit buses only accept accurately counted money and do not give change. But after some reading, the app works great and is structured in such a way that I can find everything, from departure times and routes to purchasing tickets. All buses have a place to hold bicycles at the front, but I didn't see a single bicycle that needed to be transported.

In bright sunshine at noon on November 12th, I set off from my accommodation on foot to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, about six kilometers away. The musician Abdullah Ibrahim (formerly Dollar Brand) from South Africa, born in 1934, plays there together with two other musicians. Cleave Guyton (flute, piccolo) and Noah Jackson (bass, cello) alternate with Abdullah Ibrahim in their lectures; he joins in on the piano for some of the highly virtuoso pieces by the two instrumentalists. The piano pieces make it clear that Abdullah Ibrahim can still play nimbly, even though he performs many of them in a more meditative manner. After a good 70 minutes, he sings a farewell piece and is led off the stage. Despite a standing ovation, there is no encore.