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Piano Trio
by AAJ Staff
When one talks about “jazz piano music," it is almost taken for granted they are talking about jazz piano trio music. The trio is and has been most jazz pianists' favorite format, and with good reason: the jazz piano trio has been said at times to represent the essence of jazz in the most condensed yet effective way possible. A piano trio takes full advantage of swing, interaction, and dynamics. There have certainly been outstanding jazz piano trios ...
Continue ReadingAhmad Jamal & Yusef Lateef: Live At The Olympia
by Ian Patterson
Ahmad Jamal's live performances have been well represented in his discography over the past sixty years. Yet despite touring the globe, all Jamal's live recordings--with the exception of the DVD concert from Lebanon, Live at Baalbeck (Birdology, 2003)--document North American and European gigs. France has always accorded the Pittsburgh pianist a royal welcome, naming him an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007;the regard is mutual, as Live at the Olympia is Jamal's fourth live recording in ...
Continue ReadingAhmad Jamal: Saturday Morning
by Maurizio Zerbo
L'ottantatreenne Ahmad Jamal dispensa con questo nuovo CD l'ennesima lezione di piano jazz. Le undici tracce proposte ci restituiscono l'intatta voglia di comunicare gioiose note, che svettano leggere sul pentagramma come farfalle nel cielo stellato. La sua creativa cifra personale si impone a tutto tondo, passando con invadibile souplesse dallo swing ai solari percorsi funky. La magniloquente personalità del pianista emerge soprattutto nella rielaborazione degli standard. Magistrale è in tal senso la personale rilettura di “I'm in ...
Continue ReadingAhmad Jamal at Vicar Street, Dublin
by Ian Patterson
Ahmad Jamal Vicar Street Dublin 24 January, 2014 It's been a banner year for fans of jazz piano in Dublin, with solo concerts by Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau bookending 2013. Influential to both these pianists was NEA Jazz Master Ahmad Jamal, so it was fitting in a way that he should give his first performance in Ireland in a dozen years so soon after two of the most important pianists of the past forty ...
Continue ReadingIan Patterson's Best Releases of 2013
by Ian Patterson
The following list represents my personal favorites of those CDs I reviewed this year. I am convinced that we live in a great age for jazz/creative music. You can only ever listen to a very small percentage of what's out there, but it's still a privilege to able to access this much terrific music. Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone and the London Vocal Project Mirrors (Edition Records) Yuhan Su Flying Alone
Continue ReadingSaturday Morning
by Ian Patterson
Just over a year after Blue Moon (Jazzbook Records, 2012) —Jamal's stellar homage to American cinema and Broadway—the Pittsburgh pianist returns in the same rich vein of form on Saturday Morning. Blue Moon earned a Grammy nomination, and for the second time in recent years Jamal was invited to open the Lincoln Center season in September; clearly, Jamal is enjoying his status as one of jazz's great, elder statesmen. Saturday Morning could almost be part of the same sessions that ...
Continue ReadingAhmad Jamal: Saturday Morning
by Chris May
"Play like Jamal," Miles Davis told his pianists in the mid 1950s. The trumpeter was not shy about recruiting band leaders or poaching their musicians, so you might suppose he canvassed Jamal. But the pianist maintains Davis never popped the question. Interviewed in 2012, he side-stepped the subject, saying that he was in any case too busy leading his own band to consider offers from Davis or anyone else. “I lived a block and a half from Miles when I ...
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