Ahmad Jamal

Biography

Ahmad Jamal (born Frederick Russell Jones; July 2, 1930 – April 16, 2023) was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator. For six decades, he was one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz. He was a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Master and won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for his contributions to music history.

Early life

Jamal was born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 2, 1930. He began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was playing. Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he said greatly influenced him. Although Jamal is famous for his restrained playing style, he possessed an enormous piano technique from an early age and was playing Liszt etudes in competition as young as 11 years old. His Pittsburgh roots remained an important part of his identity ("Pittsburgh meant everything to me and it still does," he said in 2001), and it was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. Jamal studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen, at which point he was recognized as a "coming great" by the pianist Art Tatum. When asked about his practice habits by a critic from The New York Times, Jamal commented that, "I used to practice and practice with the door open, hoping someone would come by and discover me. I was never the practitioner in the sense of twelve hours a day, but I always thought about music. I think about music all the time."

Beginnings

Jamal began touring with George Hudson's Orchestra after graduating from George Westinghouse High School in 1948. He then joined touring group The Four Strings, that disbanded when violinist Joe Kennedy Jr. left. In 1950 he moved to Chicago, performing intermittently with local musicians Von Freeman and Claude McLin, and solo at the Palm Tavern, occasionally joined by drummer Ike Day.
Born to Baptist parents, Jamal became interested in Islam and Islamic culture in Detroit, where there was a sizeable Muslim community, in the 1940s and 1950s. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950. In an interview with The New York Times a few years later, he said his decision to change his name stemmed from a desire to "re-establish my original name." Shortly after his conversion to Islam, he explained to The New York Times that he "says Muslim prayers five times a day and arises in time to say his first prayers at 5 am. He says them in Arabic in keeping with the Muslim tradition."
Jamal made his first records in 1951 for the Okeh label with The Three Strings (which would later also be called the Ahmad Jamal Trio, although Jamal himself avoided using the term "trio"): the other members were guitarist Ray Crawford and a bassist, at different times Eddie Calhoun (1950–52), Richard Davis (1953–54), and Israel Crosby (1954–62). The Three Strings arranged an extended engagement at Chicago's Blue Note, but leapt to fame after performing at the Embers in New York City where John Hammond saw the band play and signed them to Okeh Records. Hammond, a record producer who discovered the talents and enhanced the fame of musicians like Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie, helped Jamal's trio attract critical acclaim. Jamal subsequently recorded for Parrot (1953–55) and Epic (1955) using the piano-guitar-bass lineup. He recorded his first album with a drummer, Walter Perkins, in 1956: Count 'Em 88, which includes the influential revival of the song "On Green Dolphin Street".

At the Pershing: But Not for Me

The trio's sound changed significantly when Crawford was replaced with a drummer, and Vernel Fournier assumed this position in 1957. The group worked as the "house trio" at Chicago's Pershing Hotel. The trio released the live album At the Pershing: But Not for Me, which stayed on the Ten Best-selling charts for 108 weeks. Jamal's well-known live recording of the Nat Simon song "Poinciana×Poinciana1989 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1Old Devil Moon3:462Ahmad's Blues2:573Poinciana4:374Billy Boy2:415Will You Still Be Mine2:456Pavanne4:287Crazy He Calls Me5:008The Surrey With the Fringe on Top2:539Aki & Ukthay (Brother & Sister)3:0910Slaughter on 10th Avenue4:5311A Gal in Calico2:3812It's Easy to Remember2:57", which Jamal had first recorded on The Piano Scene of Ahmad Jamal, was released on this album.
Perhaps Jamal's most famous recording, At the Pershing: But Not for Me, was recorded at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago in 1958; it brought him an unusual level of popularity for a jazz pianist in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. The set list included various jazz standards, such as "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" from the Richard Rodgers musical Oklahoma! and Karl Suessdorf's "Moonlight in Vermont". Jamal's trio, especially through its influence on Miles Davis, would come to be recognized as a seminal force in the history of jazz. Particularly evident were Jamal's unusually minimalist and restrained style and his extended use of vamps, according to reviewer John Morthland. The New York Times contributor Ben Ratliff said, in a review of the album, "If you're looking for an argument that pleasurable mainstream art can assume radical status at the same time, Jamal is your guide."
He attracted media coverage for his investment decisions pertaining to his "rising fortune". In 1959, he took a tour of North Africa to explore investment options. Jamal, who was 29 at the time, said he was curious about the homeland of his ancestors, highly influenced by his conversion to the Muslim faith. He also said his religion had brought him peace of mind about his race, which accounted for his "growth in the field of music that has proved very lucrative for me." Upon his return to the U.S. after a tour of North Africa, the financial success of Live at the Pershing: But Not For Me allowed Jamal to open a restaurant and club called The Alhambra in Chicago, which lasted barely one year.
In 1962, the classic Jamal/Crosby/Fournier trio made its final recording, Ahmad Jamal at the Blackhawk. Although Crosby and Fournier had started to play with George Shearing, the definitive end of the trio came with Crosby's death from a heart attack in August 1962. Jamal recorded Macanudo with a full orchestra in late 1962. He then took a brief hiatus from performing and recording.

Return to music and The Awakening

In 1964, Jamal resumed performing after moving to New York and started a residency at the Village Gate nightclub. That year, he began recording a series of new trio albums with bassist Jamil S. Nasser, starting with Naked City Theme. Jamal and Nasser continued to play together until 1972. He also joined forces with Fournier (again, 1965–1966) and drummer Frank Gant (1966–77), among others. Until 1970, he played only acoustic piano. The final album on which, for a time, he played exclusively acoustic piano in the regular sequence was The Awakening. In the 1970s, he played electric piano as well, as on the instrumental recording of "Suicide is Painless," theme song from the 1970 film M*A*S*H, which was released on a 1973 reissue of the film's soundtrack album, replacing the original vocal version of the song by The Mash. Apparently, the Rhodes piano he used was a gift from someone in Switzerland. He continued to play and record throughout the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in trios with piano, bass and drums, and occasionally expanded the group to include a guitarist or a percussionist. One of his most long-standing gigs was as the band for the New Year's Eve celebrations at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C., from 1979 through the 1990s. Jamal also reimagined his hit song "Poinciana×Poinciana1989 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1Old Devil Moon3:462Ahmad's Blues2:573Poinciana4:374Billy Boy2:415Will You Still Be Mine2:456Pavanne4:287Crazy He Calls Me5:008The Surrey With the Fringe on Top2:539Aki & Ukthay (Brother & Sister)3:0910Slaughter on 10th Avenue4:5311A Gal in Calico2:3812It's Easy to Remember2:57" several times, notably on Ahmad Jamal at the Top: Poinciana Revisited (1968) and Digital Works (1985).
In 1986, Jamal sued critic Leonard Feather for using his former name in a publication.

Later career

In his 80s, Jamal continued to make numerous tours and recordings, including albums such as Saturday Morning (2013), the CD/DVD release Ahmad Jamal Featuring Yusef Lateef Live at L'Olympia (2014), Marseille (2017), and Ballades (2019), featuring mostly solo piano. Jamal was the main mentor of jazz piano virtuosos Hiromi Uehara, known as Hiromi, and Shahin Novrasli.

Personal life and death

Jamal was married and divorced three times. As a teenager, he married Virginia 'Maryam' Wilkins; they had one daughter, who pre-deceased him. In the early 1960s, he married Sharifah Frazier, with whom he had one daughter; they divorced in 1982. That year, he married his manager, Laura Hess-Hay. They divorced two years later but she represented him for the rest of his life.
On April 16, 2023, Jamal died from complications of prostate cancer at home in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts. He was 92.

Style and influence

Trained in both traditional jazz ("American classical music×American Classical Music1982 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 8 tracksA1Lament for a Dying Boy4:45A2Somewhere Along the Nile5:24A3Close Enough for Love4:34A4Firefly7:14B1Mellowdrama7:28B2Goodbye Mr. Evans5:12B3Polka Dots and Moonbeams3:53B4Bluesette3:41", as he preferred to call it) and European classical style, Jamal was praised as one of the greatest jazz innovators over the course of his exceptionally long career. Following bebop greats like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Jamal entered the world of jazz at a time when speed and virtuosic improvisation were central to the success of jazz musicians as artists. Jamal, however, took steps in the direction of a new movement, later coined "cool jazz"—an effort to move jazz in the direction of classical music. He emphasized space between notes in his musical compositions and interpretations instead of focusing on the fast-paced bebop style.
Because of this style, Jamal was "often dismissed by jazz writers as no more than a cocktail pianist, a player so given to fluff that his work shouldn't be considered seriously in any artistic sense". Stanley Crouch, author of Considering Genius, offered a very different reaction to Jamal's music, claiming that, like the highly influential Thelonious Monk, Jamal was a true innovator of the jazz tradition and is second in importance in the development of jazz after 1945 only to Charlie Parker. His unique musical style stemmed from many individual characteristics, including his use of orchestral effects and his ability to control the beat of songs. These stylistic choices resulted in a unique and new sound for the piano trio: "Through the use of space and changes of rhythm and tempo", wrote Crouch, "Jamal invented a group sound that had all the surprise and dynamic variation of an imaginatively ordered big band." Jamal explored the texture of riffs, timbres, and phrases rather than the quantity or speed of notes in any given improvisation. Speaking about Jamal, A. B. Spellman of the National Endowment of the Arts said: "Nobody except Thelonious Monk used space better, and nobody ever applied the artistic device of tension and release better." These (at the time) unconventional techniques that Jamal gleaned from both traditional classical and contemporary jazz musicians helped pave the way for later jazz greats like Bill Evans, Cedar Walton, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Monty Alexander, Fred Hersch, Bill Charlap, Vijay Iyer, and Ethan Iverson.
Music critic Ben Waltzer argued that Jamal's most significant innovation was his reconception of the piano trio as an orchestrated ensemble rather than a piano accompanied by a rhythm section. Drawing on what Jamal described as "big-band concepts", he incorporated recurring riffs, vamps, and ostinatos into the improvisational structure itself and elevated the bass and drums from supporting roles to equal participants in the musical conversation. Waltzer wrote that by blurring the distinction between foreground and background voices within the trio, Jamal created a flexible, multilayered ensemble sound that influenced subsequent generations of jazz musicians.
Though Jamal is often overlooked by jazz critics and historians, he is frequently credited with having a great influence on Miles Davis. Davis is quoted as saying that he was impressed by Jamal's rhythmic sense and his "concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement". Miles used to send his crew to concerts of Jamal, so they could learn to play like Miles wanted it. Jamal's contrasts (crafting melodies that included strong and mild tones, and fast and slow rhythms) were what impressed Miles. Jamal characterized what he thought Davis admired about his music as: "my discipline as opposed to my space." Jamal and Davis became friends in the 1950s, and Davis continued to support Jamal as a fellow musician, often playing versions of Jamal's own songs ("Ahmad's Blues", "New Rhumba") until he died in 1991. In addition, in a 1960 interview, Bill Evans said of Jamal, "I enjoy listening to him very much." Evans emphatically rejected the "cocktail pianist" criticism of Jamal, stating, "It's a real thing he's doing."
Jamal, speaking about his own work, said, "I like doing ballads. They're hard to play. It takes years of living, really, to read them properly." From an early age, Jamal developed an appreciation for the lyrics of the songs he learned: "I once heard Ben Webster playing his heart out on a ballad. All of a sudden he stopped. I asked him, 'Why did you stop, Ben?' He said, 'I forgot the lyrics.'" Jamal attributed the variety in his musical taste to the fact that he grew up in several eras: the big band era, the bebop years, and the electronic age. He said his style evolved from drawing on the techniques and music produced in these three eras. In 1985, Jamal agreed to do an interview and recording session with his fellow jazz pianist, Marian McPartland on her NPR show Piano Jazz. Jamal, who said he rarely would play "But Not For Me" due to its popularity after his 1958 recording, played an improvised version of the tune – though only after noting that he moved on to making ninety percent of his repertoire his own compositions. He said that when he grew in popularity from the Live at the Pershing album, he was severely criticized afterwards for not playing any of his own compositions.

In his later years, Jamal embraced the electronic influences affecting the genre of jazz. He also occasionally expanded his usual small ensemble of three to include a tenor saxophone (George Coleman) and a violin. A jazz fan interviewed by Down Beat magazine about Jamal in 2010 described his development as "more aggressive and improvisational these days. The word I used to use is avant garde; that might not be right. Whatever you call it, the way he plays is the essence of what jazz is."
Saxophonist Ted Nash described his experience with Jamal's style in an interview with Down Beat magazine: "The way he comped wasn't the generic way that lots of pianists play with chords in the middle of the keyboard, just filling things up. He gave lots of single line responses. He'd come back and throw things out at you, directly from what you played. It was really interesting because it made you stop, and allowed him to respond, and then you felt like playing something else – that's something I don't feel with a lot of piano players. It's really quite engaging. I guess that's another reason people focus in on him. He makes them hone in."
Jamal recorded with the voices of the Howard A. Roberts Chorale on The Bright, the Blue and the Beautiful and Cry Young; with vibraphonist Gary Burton on In Concert; with brass, reeds, and strings celebrating his hometown of Pittsburgh; with The Assai Quartet; and with tenor saxophonist George Coleman on the album The Essence Part One.

Awards and honors

1959: Entertainment Award, Pittsburgh Junior Chamber of Commerce Players
1980: Distinguished Service Award, City of Washington D.C., Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution
1981: Nominee for Best R&B Instrumental Performance ("You're Welcome", "Stop on By"), 24th Annual Grammy Awards
1986: Mellon Jazz Festival Salutes Ahmad Jamal, Pittsburgh.
1987: Honorary Membership, Philippines Jazz Foundation
1994: American Jazz Masters award, National Endowment for the Arts
2001: Arts & Culture Recognition Award, National Coalition of 100 Black Women
2001: Kelly-Strayhorn Gallery of Stars, for Achievements as Pianist and Composer, East Liberty Quarter Chamber of Commerce
2003: Inductee, American Jazz Hall of Fame, New Jersey Jazz Society
2003: Gold Medallion, Steinway & Sons 150 Years Celebration (1853–2003)
2007: Living Jazz Legend, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
2007: Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Government of France
2011: Down Beat Hall of Fame, 76th Readers Poll
2015: Honorary Doctorate of Music, The New England Conservatory
2017: Lifetime Achievement Award, 59th Annual Grammy Awards, The Recording Academy
2018: International Eddie Rosner Leopolis Jazz Music Award, Leopolis Jazz Fest, Lviv

Compilations

1967: Standard Eyes (Cadet)
1972: Inspiration (Cadet)
1974: Re-evaluations: The Impulse! Years (Impulse!)
1980: The Best of Ahmad Jamal (20th Century)
1998: Cross Country Tour 1958–1961 (Chess/GRP Records)
2005: The Legendary Okeh & Epic Recordings (1951–1955) (Columbia Legacy)
2007: Complete Live at the Pershing Lounge 1958 (Gambit)
2007: Complete Live at the Spotlite Club 1958 (Gambit)
2010: The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-62 (Mosaic Records)
2014: Complete Live at the Blackhawk (Essential Jazz Classics)
2022: Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse 1963–1964 (Jazz Detective)
2022: Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse 1965-1966 (Jazz Detective)
2023: Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse 1966-1968 (Jazz Detective)

As sideman

With Ray Brown

Some of My Best Friends Are...The Piano Players (Telarc, 1994)
With Pat Metheny/Gary Burton/The Heath Brothers

All The Things You Are (Fruit Tree, 1999)
With Shirley Horn

May the Music Never End (Verve, 2003)