2023-04-17 10:22:42
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 2, 1930, pianist Ahmad Jamal (Frederick Russel “Fritz” Jones) died peacefully at his home in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts on April 16, 2023 from complications of prostate cancer. prostate. “All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal”, said and repeated Miles Davis, as early as 1958. Ahmad Jamal knew it. Keith Jarrett, among all the greats of the piano, makes him his master. Jack DeJohnette will dedicate to him Ahmad the Terrible (1985). Fate gave him a special spell, in the ups and downs. We loved him with a special love, as he was, in his phrasing, his swing, his two perfectly equal hands, his youthful silhouette, his dazzling smile, and his unique way of enchanting his trios or quartets.
His mother gave him private lessons: classical repertoire, Liszt, Mozart, plus Duke Ellington, “like all African-American musicians”, he says. He attended Westinghouse High School but, at 14, well before the required age, he entered a club where the master of masters, Art Tatum, played. Art Tatum, whom Horowitz never failed to listen to when he was in Manhattan. Ahmad Jamal will repeat, to no avail: “I’m not paranoid about the word ‘jazz’, but every word demands its accuracy. Two new inventions marked the United States of America: Indian-American art and American classical music, in other words Afro-American music. I play African-American classical music. »
Brief passage in the big band of George Hudson (1947), a moment with The Four Strings (1949-1950), the accompaniment of rigor of soloists and singers passing through town, then he founded a trio, The Three Strings (1950 ), with guitarist Ray Crawford (sometimes Barney Kessel) and bassist Eddie Calhoun. From his first recordings (1951), inspired by Nat King Cole’s trio, he is already in this moving, sensual, circular form – his form – whose precocity and constancy amaze today. Everything is found immediately. Criticism ticks: Miles and Bill Evans come to his rescue.
fusional harmony
He engraves pieces with a unique invoice – Ahmad’s Blues, New Rhumba –, mixes rhythms, tempos, and leaves New York in 1955. The owner of Birdland had programmed him in a noisy cabaret, while he aims for a kind of fusional harmony, that of chamber musicians, on a repertoire of airs easy. The night a customer puts his glass of wine on the piano, and knocks it over, he takes his clicks and his slaps and leaves New York.
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