Jazz Articles about Ahmad Jamal

About Ahmad Jamal

Extended Analysis

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 ...

Album Review

Ahmad Jamal: Saturday Morning

Read "Saturday Morning" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
September 16, 2013

"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 ...

Live Review

Ahmad Jamal: San Francisco, CA, June 18, 2013

by Ken Vermes
June 23, 2013

Ahmad JamalSymphony HallSan Francisco, CAJune 18, 2013SFJAZZ has accomplished a lot of things as it approaches its first half-year in its new building. Amongst them is revealing dedicated audiences for specific areas of the jazz universe, including piano-led bands. On the face of things, little may appear to connect two masters of this format, Ahmad Jamal, who performed on June 13 at Symphony Hall, and Brad Mehldau, who performed from April 26 to 28 at ...

Extended Analysis

Ahmad Jamal: Blue Moon

by Ian Patterson
May 30, 2012

Ahmad Jamal—senior statesman of jazz piano—first recorded 60 years ago. That he's still producing records of great energy, imagination and flair every couple of years is a remarkable testament to his singular talent. Blue Moon broadly follows the formula of It's Magic (Dreyfus Records, 2008) and A Quiet Time (Dreyfus, 2010); a few Jamal originals, a handful of timeless show tunes and popular numbers from bygone years, plus a nod to the jazz cannon. According to the liner notes the ...

Album Review

Ahmad Jamal: Blue Moon

Read "Blue Moon" reviewed by Larry Taylor

by Larry Taylor
March 21, 2012

In 1958 Pianist Ahmad Jamal burst on the scene with At the Pershing: But Not for Me (Argo Records), which contained the runaway hit “Poinciana." The song's impact was such that it remains Jamal's signature tune to this day. As sometimes comes with popular success, some jazz critics pulled back, but his championing by other musicians, such as trumpeter Miles Davis in 1955—citing the pianist as one of his big influences—subdued their effect. Over the decades, Jamal has made many ...

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Extended Analysis

Ahmad Jamal: Blue Moon

by Chris May
January 31, 2012

Ahmad JamalBlue MoonJazz Village2012 It is tempting to say that, at age 82, Ahmad Jamal carries on getting better and better, but that would be to miss the point. The pianist long ago reached a level of perfection from which it is simply not possible to get better. It is a level, however, to which he habitually returns. In 2010, Jamal released one of the most sublime albums in his long ...

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Catching Up With

Ahmad Jamal

by Chris May
January 31, 2012

In February 2010, at the well seasoned age of 80, pianist Ahmad Jamal released A Quiet Time on Dreyfus Records. It is an album many observers regard as up there in the stratosphere along with such landmark Jamal discs as Chicago Revisited (Telarc, 1992) or A L'Olympia (Dreyfus, 1996), to name just two of many--or even Jamal's breakthrough LP, But Not For Me: At The Pershing (Chess, 1958). Sadly, Francis Dreyfus--a revered figure in the European record business, ...