Jamal, Ahmad

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Ahmad Jamal

1930—

Pianist, composer

The pianist and composer Ahmad Jamal objected to being labeled a "jazz musician," a term that he believed could not adequately encompass the range and variety of his music. In a 1994 interview with Eugene Holley Jr. of American Visions, Jamal explained, "The term ‘jazz’ is certainly not sufficient; it was used to try and downgrade the music, but the music was so viable and it was so potent, nothing could keep it down." Instead, Jamal dubbed his style of playing "American classical music," a phrase that he felt captured its diverse elements, including European classical, folk, and Latin music.

However he is classified, Jamal is notable in the music world for his distinctive style, marked by tight arrangements, simple embellishments, and an innovative use of space (silence). He is also known for pioneering the small-group "chamber jazz" sound, treating his signature trio in the same way one might approach an orchestra. He exerted a profound influence on subsequent jazz musicians, particularly Miles Davis.

Became a Musical Prodigy

Ahmad Jamal was born Frederick Russell Jones on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A child prodigy, he began playing the piano at age three. Jamal wrote on his Web site, "At three years of age, my wonderful Uncle Lawrence stopped me while I was walking past the piano in my parents' living room. He was playing the piano and challenged me to duplicate what he was doing. Although I had never touched this or any piano, I sat down and played note for note what I had heard. ‘The rest is history.’"

At age seven, Jamal's mother arranged for him to study classical music with the African-American opera singer Mary Caldwell and the pianist James Miller. His training in classical music would have a significant influence on his music, distinguishing him from other strictly jazz musicians. In particular, he was attracted to the compositions of Franz Liszt, Maurice Ravel, and Claude Debussy.

By age eleven, Jamal was playing professionally in local clubs. As a teenager, he began to explore Pittsburgh's vibrant jazz scene, and he was influenced by the work of Art Tatum and Erroll Garner. He joined the Musicians Union at age fourteen. After graduating from Pittsburgh's Westinghouse High School in 1948, by which time he was already a husband and father to one child, Jamal put off plans to attend Juilliard and instead took his first job with the George Hudson Orchestra. The following year he joined the Four Strings, a group led by the violinist Joe Kennedy Jr., a childhood friend of Jamal's who recognized the pianist's tremendous talent. In 1951 he worked as an accompanist for the song-and-dance team the Caldwells.

The musician converted to Islam in 1950, at which time he changed his name from Frederick Jones to Ahmad Jamal.

Pioneered Chamber Jazz Ensemble

Jamal would come into his own during the 1950s, earning acclaim among audiences as well as achieving financial success. When Kennedy left the Four Strings in 1951, the remaining members—Jamal, the guitarist Ray Crawford, and the bass player Eddie Calhoun—became known as the Three Strings (later renamed the Ahmad Jamal Trio). The trio debuted at the Blue Note jazz club in Chicago. Soon, they were discovered by the producer John Hammond while performing at the Embers club in New York City; Hammond immediately signed the group to Columbia Records' Okeh label (now part of Sony Records). Jamal issued his first recording, Ahmad's Blues, in 1951.

The following year Jamal made his first of many appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York City, which he said was his favorite venue. The Ahmad Jamal Trio performed on the same bill as the Duke Ellington Orchestra (celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary that evening), Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stan Getz.

In 1956 Jamal switched the format of his trio to the more traditional combination of piano, bass, and drums, teaming up with the bassist Israel Crosby and the drummer Vernell Fournier. The trio played as the house band at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago. There, they recorded the live album Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing, which featured the singles "But Not for Me" and "Poinciana." The latter became an instant classic and Jamal's signature song. The album was a runaway success, topping the Billboard charts for 108 weeks and selling more than a million copies, two feats that no jazz album had ever achieved.

Throughout the late 1950s and the 1960s Jamal kept up a hectic pace of recording and touring. For many years, however, he refused to play in the racially segregated South. His financial success allowed him to open his own club, the Alhambra, in Chicago, though it closed in the midst of Jamal's divorce in 1962.

For the first three decades of his career, Jamal focused primarily on adapting and reinterpreting jazz standards. But in the 1980s, following the release of his album Digital Works (1985), he began to create original compositions that were more complex than his earlier work. Jamal told Holley, "I believe that we've done enough adaptation of popular songs…. Now is the time for the musician to write his own repertoire rather than to keep resurrecting the things that are in somebody else's mind."

Influenced the Music World

Even though Jamal influenced many subsequent musicians, in jazz and in other genres, he had perhaps the most profound effect on the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. Davis recorded several songs that Jamal had covered, and he even asked his own pianist, Red Garland, to try to sound more like Jamal. Davis wrote in his autobiography (1990), "He knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement, and the way he phrased notes and chords and passages." Jamal's music has also been sampled by many contemporary rap and hip-hop artists, including Nas, Common, and Jay-Z.

At a Glance …

Born Frederick Russell Jones on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, PA; married in 1947 (divorced, 1962); children: Sumayah. Religion: Muslim. Education: Trained under the opera signer Mary Caldwell and the pianist James Miller.

Career: George Hudson Orchestra, pianist, 1948; Four Strings, pianist, 1949; the Caldwells, accompanist, 1951; Ahmad Jamal Trio, pianist, composer, and leader, 1951—.

Awards: American Jazz Masters Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, 1994; Duke Ellington Fellowship, Yale University, 1994; Django d'Or Award (France), 1996; Arts and Culture Recognition Award, 2001; American Jazz Hall of Fame, New Jersey Jazz Society, 2003; Gold Medallion, 2003; French Order of Arts and Letters, 2007.

Addresses: Agent—Ellora Management, PO Box 755, 11 Brook St., Lakeville, CT 06039. Web—http://www.ahmadjamal.net.

Jamal earned many accolades for his work. In 1994 he received the American Jazz Masters Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University. In 1996 he received France's Django d'Or Award, the most prestigious jazz prize in Europe. In 2007 he was inducted into the French Order of Arts and Letters, which honors artists who have made significant contributions to the arts in France and around the world.

Into his seventies, Jamal continued to tour extensively and issue new recordings, including After Fajr in 2005 and It's Magic in 2008.

Selected works

Discography

Ahmad's Blues, Okeh, 1951.

Chamber Music of the New Jazz, Argo, 1955.

Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing: But Not for Me, Chess, 1958.

Portfolio of Ahmad Jamal, Argo, 1958.

Jamal at the Penthouse, Argo, 1959.

The Awakening, Impulse, 1970.

Digital Works, Atlantic, 1985.

Pittsburgh, Atlantic, 1989.

Live at Blues Alley Blues, Alley, 1992.

Chicago Revisited: Live at Joel Segal's Jazz Showcase, 1993.

The Essence of Ahmad Jamal, Part 1, Verve, 1994.

I Remember Duke, Hoagy, and Strayhorn, Telarc, 1994.

Big Byrd: The Essence, Part 2, Verve, 1997.

Nature: The Essence, Part 3, Atlantic, 1998.

Olympia 2000, Dreyfus, 2001.

Live in Paris 1996, Dreyfus, 2003.

In Search of Momentum, Dreyfus, 2003.

After Fajr, Birdology/Dreyfus Jazz, 2005.

It's Magic, Dreyfus, 2008.

Books

(With Alex Smith) The Ahmad Jamal Collection, Leonard Corp., 1997.

Sources

Books

Crouch, Stanley, Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz, Civitas Books, 2006.

Davis, Miles, with Quincy Troupe, Miles, the Autobiography, Simon and Schuster, 1990.

Doerschuk, Robert L., 88: The Giants of Jazz Piano, Backbeat Books, 2001.

Periodicals

American Visions, October-November 1994.

New York Times, November 11, 2001.

Phoenix New Times, January 14, 1999.

Online

Ahmad Jamal,http://www.ahmadjamal.net (accessed June 12, 2008).

"Ahmad Jamal Releases ‘It's Magic’ June 10 on Birdology/Dreyfus," All about Jazz,http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=17982 (accessed June 12, 2008).

Fitzgerald, Greg, "Ahmad Jamal," Jazz Profiles,http://www.npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/archive/jamal.html (accessed June 12, 2008).