Water From An Ancient Well

Recorded in October 1985 at the Van Gelder studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and released by Blackhawk in 1986. Rudy Van Gelder engineered it and Sathima Bea Benjamin is credited as producer. The back of the sleeve names the group as Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya. All eight tracks were written by Ibrahim, and the lineup is a septet: Ibrahim on piano, Carlos Ward on flute, Ricky Ford on tenor saxophone, Charles Davis on baritone saxophone, Dick Griffin on trombone, David Williams on bass and Ben Riley on drums.

The opening track is Mandela, and the third is a shorter revisit of his 1974 piece, titled Mannenberg Revisited (Cape Town Fringe). The same shorter version was also put on the 1989 album The Mountain. In his AllMusic review, Scott Yanow picked out Mandela, Song for Sathima, the title track and The Wedding as among Ibrahim's finest compositions. The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.