Ahmad Jamal, whose simple, measured piano style has been an inspiration to generations of jazz musicians, died Sunday at his home in Ashley Falls, Mass. He is 92 years old.
His daughter, Sumayah Jamal, said the cause was prostate cancer.
In a career that has brought him the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, the Grammy lifetime achievement award and the honor of the French Order of Arts and Letters, Mr. Jamal has made his mark with his approach. solemnly honored what he called space in music.
That approach stands in stark contrast to the challenging complex music known as bebop, which was sweeping the jazz world when Jamal began his career as a teenager in the mid-1940s. The Bebop pianists, following the lead of Bud Powell, are known for their virtuosic notes. Mr. Jamal chose a different path, which proved equally influential.
Critic Stanley Crouch wrote that the father of bebop, Charlie Parker, was the only musician “more important to the development of a new form in jazz than Ahmad Jamal.”
In his early years, Mr. Jamal listened to not only jazz, which he liked to call “American classical”, but also classical music of various non-American genres.
“We don’t separate the two schools,” he told The New York Times in 2001. “We studied Bach and Ellington, Mozart and Art Tatum. When you start at 3, what you hear you play. I have heard all of this.”
Mr. Jamal’s laid-back, approachable style, with its dense chords, wide dynamic range and, above all, the judicious use of silence, has earned him many disparaging reviews in the music press. beginner jazz; Martin Williams’ classic history “Jazz Tradition” has described his music as “luxurious and shallow”.
But it quickly became an integral part of the jazz scene. Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett are among a number of famous jazz pianists who have looked up to Mr. Jamal as an example.
Perhaps the songwriter best known to consider Mr. Jamal influential was not a pianist but a trumpeter and bandleader: Miles Davis, who became Jamal’s close friend, recorded the songs. writing and staging and will bring his assistants to see Mr. Jamal. Jamal performed. He once said, “All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.”
Ahmad Jamal was born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh on July 2, 1930. Fritz, as he was commonly known, started playing the piano at the age of 3 and began studying with Mary Cardwell Dawson, founder of the National Company. Negro Opera Company, a few years later. By the time he joined the musicians’ association at age 14, renowned virtuoso jazz pianist Art Tatum hailed him as “an upcoming great,” and he began touring with the band. of George Hudson after graduating from high school.
In 1950, he moved to Chicago, where he converted to Islam, changed his name to Ahmad Jamal, and put together a piano-guitar-bass trio called the Three Strings. During an extended stay at the Embers nightclub in Manhattan in 1951, the trio caught the attention of renowned record producer and talent scout John Hammond, who signed them with Okeh company.
In 1955, Mr. Jamal recorded his first full-length album, “Ahmad Jamal Plays,” with guitarist Ray Crawford and bassist Israel Crosby, for the small Parrot label. Notably, when the album was acquired and re-released the following year by Argo, a subsidiary of the well-known blues label Chess, it was renamed “The Chamber Music of New Jazz”.
Mr. Jamal made his first national appearance with the Argo album “At the Pershing: But Not for Me,” recorded at a Chicago nightclub in 1958 with Mr. Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier. It spent more than two years on the Billboard album chart, an unprecedented amount of time for a jazz album.
The success of “At the Pershing” stems in part from Jamal’s standard interpretation that is both fluid and engaging. “Poinciana,” remains his most famous record. But he received some criticism for not including any original composition on the album, which he later said prompted him to focus on writing his own music.
Mr. Jamal’s output was as extraordinary as his light-fingered style was frugal: He released three albums a year in the late 1960s and early 70s. He also founded several record labels, management company and a Chicago nightclub and restaurant called the Alhambra, although that business lasted less than a year. In keeping with its religious beliefs, the Alhambra does not serve alcohol, which probably hastened its demise.
Alhambra’s financial difficulties marked the beginning of a dark period in Jamal’s life, during which he did not perform for nearly three years. The club closed in December 1961; Three months later, he filed for divorce from Maryam Jamal, formerly Virginia Wilkins, whom he married at the age of 17.
This was followed by five years of litigation, during which Mr Jamal was arrested and charged with failing to pay child support to their daughter. (He was later cleared.) He was hospitalized in 1963 after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. It was not until 1964 that he began touring and recording again.
He got married for the first time as a teenager, and that marriage ended in divorce. He married Sharifah Frazier, Sumayah’s mother, in the early 1960s, and they divorced in 1982. He married Laura Hess-Hay, his manager, the same year and they divorced in 1984, although although she continued to represent him until his death. . In addition to his daughter, he is survived by two grandchildren.
Live recordings often capture Jamal’s most nimble moments, and many jazz connoisseurs rate albums like “Freeflight” (1971), recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival, and “Chicago Revisited: Live at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase” (1993) among his live recordings. the best.
In 2011, Mosaic Records released a nine-CD set consisting of 12 albums he recorded for Argo between 1956 and 1962. His album “Blue Moon”, a collection of originals and standards, was released. It was well received, released in 2012 and nominated for a Grammy. His album “Marseille” was released in 2017 and “Ballades” in 2019.
The homage to Mr. Jamal extends beyond the world of jazz. Clint Eastwood used two tracks from “But Not for Me” as the soundtrack for his movie “The Bridges of Madison County.”
But broader offerings have come from the hip-hop world. Tracks like De La Soul’s “Stakes Is High” and Nas’ “The World Is Yours,” along with dozens of other rap songs, sampled Mr.
As contagious as those riffs are, it is the ballads that have the strongest appeal to Mr. Jamal. Like many other interpreters of the standard repertoire, he took an interest in learning the lyrics he played. He spoke approvingly to The Times in 2001 about a conversation he once had with a great jazz saxophonist who is also known for his ballad playing.
“I used to hear Ben Webster play hard on a ballad,” he said. “Suddenly he stopped. I asked him, ‘Why did you stop, Ben?’ He said, ‘I forgot the lyrics.’”
Alex Traub contribution report.
