Remembering Ahmad Jamal: Finished But Not Never

Ahmad Jamal, the quiet pioneer of jazz piano has died aged 92, after a battle with prostate cancer. He passed away on Sunday, 16 April, according to a statement from his daughter, Sumayah Jamal.

In a career that spanned the 1940s to the 2020s, Jamal always followed his own musical instincts. He was one of the very few pianists of the day not to succumb to the lure of bebop, purveying instead a spare, refined sound. Perhaps because his approach was so different to the prevailing lingua franca of the 1950s, he was dubbed a "cocktail pianist" in some unenlightened quarters.

Miles Davis knew better. For a period in the 1950's Jamal was the primary influence on Davis' approach to small ensemble playing. "When people say Jamal influenced me a lot, they're right..." Davis acknowledged in his autobiography.

Later, the young Keith Jarrett would be equally spellbound by Jamal's unique voice. Swedish innovator Jan Johansson was also drawn to Jamal's compositions and his less-is-more aesthetic.

But Jamal's influence was not confined to the 1950s or 1960s. Contemporary pianists such as Brad Mehldau, Jacky Terrasson, Jason Moran, Fred Hersch, Hiromi and Tribal Tech's Scott Kinsey have all extolled Jamal's genius.

Singaporean pianist Jeremy Monteiro told All About Jazz in 2021: "Listening to Ahmad Jamal stating the melodies so succinctly with this beautiful phrasing... you could feel where his breath was... That really did affect my aesthetic in one big way, which is the same way it affected Miles and that is in how I deliver a melody."

It was Jamal's economy, his touch, swing and above all his use of space that influenced so many. Jamal himself, saw it differently, as he told All About Jazz in 2010: "Other people call it space. I've never called it space. I call it discipline."

Born Frederick Russell Jones on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he began playing piano at the age of three. Growing up, he didn't have to travel far to hear jazz. Pittsburgh had bred the likes of Billy Strayhorn, Erroll Garner, Earl Hines, Ray Brown, Art Blakey, Stanley Turrentine, Billy Eckstine and Maxine Sullivan, among many others.

Pittsburgh was an important musical incubator for Jamal: "That's where all my inspiration comes from," he told All About Jazz.

The pianists that would influence the young Jamal were Art Tatum, Errol Garner and Nat King Cole. "They were equally influential," Jamal said.

Jamal began touring with various groups in the late 1940s. He discovered Islam in his teens and changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950. He rarely spoke about his religious beliefs and in later years interviewers were requested not to broach the subject.

Jamal's first record was for Okeh in 1951 with The Three Strings, which featured the influential guitarist Ray Crawford, and, over the following few years, bassists Eddie Calhoun, Richard Davis and Israel Crosby. Before the decade was out, Jamal, with Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier would enjoy a million-selling album with At The Pershing: But Not For Me (Argo, 1958).

The trio would record a dozen albums between 1958 and 1962, when its trajectory was cut short by the tragic death of Crosby.

Widely admired at the time, the passing years have only strengthened its reputation as one of the finest piano trios in the history of jazz. Not that Jamal was aware at the time of just how special the trio was. "I was too young to fully appreciate what I had," he admitted. "I was not mature enough."

As the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, Jamal, like so many of his peers, dabbled with electric keyboards, with mixed results. In 1983 he hired James Cammack, who would remain the pianist's first-choice bassist for over thirty years.

Nobody knew Jamal's approach to small ensemble playing better than Cammack, insights he shared with All About Jazz in 2012. "It's completely orchestral. The trio to him is like a big band. It's not like a jazz band," Cammack explained.

"Most jazz groups play from top to bottom. They play the tune then they go into the improvisation section, then they go into the ensemble section, they come out with some more solos and then they end the tune. Ahmad starts with the ensemble section, then he goes into the improvisational section, and we may never hear the melody or anything that resembles the top of the tune until maybe near the end of the song."

Jamal, by his own admission, was "not a migratory bird." His European tour of 1996 was the first time he had played there since touring with Hampton Hawes in 1963. Little wonder audiences received him so ecstatically. Jamal credited Jean-Francois Deiber, the owner of Birdology Records, for bringing him back to European audiences.

It would mark a significant new chapter in Jamal's career, one that saw him tour the world and find adoring new audiences in Australia, Brazil, Lebanon, Thailand and Malaysia.

Jamal seemed to enjoy a special relationship with French audiences. He would record four live albums in France in the 1990s and 2000s, including Live at the Olympia with Yusef Lateef.

In Europe, and elsewhere, they rolled the red carpet out for Jamal whenever he turned up, a reverence that, by comparison, was largely lacking on home soil.

"You'll never see a great neon sign like I have when I do the Olympia, not any place in the United States," Jamal stated with thinly disguised regret. "I've had those kind of marquees all over the world, but not in the United States."

In time, recognition at home did come. Jamal's contributions to jazz were acknowledged when he became an NEA Jazz Master in 1994. He was particularly proud when Clint Eastwood used two of Jamal's songs in the film The Bridges of Madison County.

There was also a string of notable late-career albums, chief among them It's Magic (Birdology, 2007), A Quiet Time (Dreyfus, 2009) the Grammy-nominated Blue Moon (Jazz Village, 2011), Saturday Morning (Jazz Village, 2013) and Marseille (Jazz Village, 2016).

Jamal's final studio album was Ballades (Jazz Village, 2019), released almost seventy years after his first. A mostly solo piano outing, Jamal was joined on three of the ballads by his long-standing bassist, James Cammack, who observed:

"Some of the most amazing things I've ever heard him play are things he's done in rubato; solo in ballads. His ballads are stellar. Nobody can nail that stuff like that. His manipulation of the inner voicing of songs is just unmatched."

It is a testament to Jamal's continuing relevance that his music has been widely sampled by the likes of J Dilla, De La Soul, Nas and Jay-Z. Like Miles Davis and Keith Jarrett, they too can hear the timeless magic in Jamal's music.

Ahmad Jamal: July 2, 1930-April 16, 2023.

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