Ahmad Jamal: At The Jazz Showcase: Live In Chicago

There was something Buddha yet cool-as-all-hell about Ahmad Jamal. Who else would give the whole story away with the set-opening, barn-raising ingenuity of "Ahmad's Song"—a CV of everything Jamal—his musings on time and space; his insatiable swing— and dares you to keep up on At The Jazz Showcase: Live in Chicago.

A gig to remember, no matter what side of history it happened on, Jamal, bassist John Heard, and drummer Frank Gant take a chill, take-no- prisoners attitude at Joe Segal's legendary Second City haven at 806 S. Plymouth in Printers Row and set the house aflame.

Released as just one of a plethora of shiny new, used, and unknown releases to celebrate Record Store Day 2026 (April 18, 2026),  At The Jazz Showcase: Live in Chicago, produced sans flaw by none other than the Jazz Detective himself, Zev Feldman whams open with "Ahmad's Song." Fifteen beautiful minutes of opera and Erroll Garner atmospheres, exponentially worth whatever the admission fee in 1976 may have been, given whatever the economic crisis of the time. (Dr. Google says between three and six dollars). It is a madly expansive piece that tsunamis its way into the similarly expansive, yet the more coolly banging "Wave," written epically by Antonio Carlos Jobim and first heard and hailed on Jamal's 1970 Impulse! Records triumph The Awakening.

The wildly syncopated "Have You Met Miss Jones?," a tune that shifts its center like flurries on a soft breeze, carries us headlong into a head-on collision with Johnny Mandel's "Theme from M*A*S*H." Yes, yes that "Theme from M*A*S*H" and, pardon the easy pun, they mash it up. Mash it up good and grandly, then reassemble all those pieces for "Dolphin Dance," a Herbie Hancock classic that Jamal, Heard, and Gant make entirely their own. "Prelude To A  Kiss" is a mic-drop solo performance with Jamal stopping by at random moments in the history of piano and taking that moment to interpret at will. Riffing wildly on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "Swahililand," first heard on Jamal Plays Jamal (20th Century, 1974), is one of those time-suspending, life-affirming performances wished for by every denizen in the house.

Ahmad Jamal always took the stage looking to set the bar higher than the gig before. Here, with the first live release of Jamal, Heard, and Gant onstage, At The Jazz Showcase: Live in Chicago, Resonance Records sets the bar even higher. And that is a peak to be climbed given the live majesty barely contained on 2022's Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse (Vol. 1-30), again, on Resonance Records.

For those of us who never got to see Jamal in a club, with a trio, and a double vodka in hand, At The Jazz Showcase: Live in Chicago- -available as a 2-CD set and limited-edition 180-gram 2-LP with all the archival and contemporary bells and whistles, we are all thankful to Resonance for—paints the perfect picture.