Har lyst til å slå et slag for en fantastisk pianist som fortsatt er med og har spilt i 82 av sitt 85årige liv... Ahmad Jamal!
Fikk inn en ny cd som spilles første gang i dag, betimelig på en lørdag da albumtittelen er "Saturday Morning - La Buissonne Studio Sessions"
Innspilt i 2013 med en knallbra lineup av musikere - Reginald Veal på bass, Herlin Riley, trommer, og den rå Manolo Badrena på perkusjon. Nyt!
Wikipedia forteller litt om en aldeles lysende karriere....
Trained in both traditional jazz ("American classical music", as he prefers to call it)
[6] and European classical style, Ahmad Jamal has been praised as one of the greatest jazz innovators over his exceptionally long career. Following
bebop greats like
Charlie Parker and
Dizzy Gillespie, Jamal entered the world of jazz at a time when speed and virtuosic improvisation were central to the success of jazz musicians as artists. Jamal, however, took steps in the direction of a new movement, later coined "
cool jazz" – an effort to move jazz in the direction of popular music. He emphasized space and time in his musical compositions and interpretations instead of focusing on the blinding speed of
bebop.
Because of this style, Jamal was "often dismissed by jazz writers as no more than a cocktail pianist, a player so given to fluff that his work shouldn't be considered seriously in any artistic sense".
[16] Stanley Crouch, author of
Considering Genius, offers a very different reaction to Jamal's music, claiming that, like the highly influential
Thelonious Monk, Jamal was a true innovator of the jazz tradition and is second in importance in the development of jazz after 1945 only to Parker.
[17] His unique musical style stemmed from many individual characteristics, including his use of orchestral effects and his ability to control the beat of songs. These stylistic choices resulted in a unique and new sound for the piano trio: "Through the use of space and changes of rhythm and tempo", writes Crouch, "Jamal invented a group sound that had all the surprise and dynamic variation of an imaginatively ordered
big band."
[18] Jamal explored the texture of
riffs,
timbres, and phrases rather than the quantity or speed of notes in any given improvisation. Speaking about Jamal,
A. B. Spellman of the
National Endowment of the Arts said: "Nobody except Thelonious Monk used space better, and nobody ever applied the artistic device of tension and release better."
[19] These (at the time) unconventional techniques that Jamal gleaned from both traditional classical and contemporary jazz musicians helped pave the way for later jazz greats like
Bill Evans,
Herbie Hancock, and
McCoy Tyner.
[20]
Though Jamal is often overlooked by jazz critics and historians, he is frequently credited with having a great influence on
Miles Davis. Davis is quoted as saying that he was impressed by Jamal's rhythmic sense and his "concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement..."
[21] Jamal characterizes what he thought Davis admired about his music as: "my discipline as opposed to my space."
[22]
Jamal and Davis became friends in the 1950s, and Davis continued to support Jamal as a fellow musician, often playing versions of Jamal's own songs ("Ahmad's Blues," "New Rhumba") until he died in 1991.
[21]
Jamal, speaking about his own work says, "I like doing ballads. They're hard to play. It takes years of living, really, to read them properly."
[10] From an early age, Jamal developed an appreciation for the lyrics of the songs he learned: "I once heard
Ben Webster playing his heart out on a ballad. All of a sudden he stopped. I asked him, 'Why did you stop, Ben?' He said, 'I forgot the lyrics.'"
[6] Jamal attributes the variety in his musical taste to the fact that he grew up in several eras: the big band era, the bebop years, and the electronic age.
[23] He says his style evolved from drawing on the techniques and music produced in these three eras.
In more recent years, Jamal has embraced the electronic influences affecting the genre of jazz. He has also occasionally expanded his usual small ensemble of three to include a tenor saxophone (George Coleman) and a violin (Ray Kennedy). A jazz fan interviewed by
Downbeat magazine about Jamal in 2010 described his development as "more aggressive and improvisational these days. The word I used to use is avant garde; that might not be right. Whatever you call it, the way he plays is the essence of what jazz is."
[24]
Ted Nash, a longtime member of the
Lincoln Center Orchestra, had the opportunity to play with Jamal in 2008 for
Jazz at Lincoln Center. Nash described his experience with Jamal's style in an interview with
Downbeat magazine: "The way he comped wasn't the generic way that lots of pianists play with chords in the middle of the keyboard, just filling things up. He gave lots of single line responses. He'd come back and throw things out at you, directly from what you played. It was really interesting because it made you stop, and allowed him to respond, and then you felt like playing something else – that's something I don't feel with a lot of piano players. It's really quite engaging. I guess that's another reason people focus in on him. He makes them hone in."
[25]
At the Pershing: But Not For Me[edit]
Perhaps Jamal’s most famous recording and undoubtedly the one that brought him vast popularity in the late 1950s and into the 1960s jazz age,
At the Pershing was recorded at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago in 1958. Jamal played the set with bassist
Israel Crosby and drummer
Vernel Fournier. The set list expressed a diverse collection of tunes, including “The Surrey With the Fringe On Top” from the musical
Oklahoma! and Jamal’s famous arrangement of the jazz standard “
Poinciana.” Jazz musicians and listeners alike found inspiration in the
At the Pershing recording, and Jamal’s trio was recognized as an integral new building block in the history of jazz. Evident were his unusually
minimalist style and his extended vamps,
[26] according to reviewer John Morthland. “If you’re looking for an argument that pleasurable mainstream art can assume radical status at the same time, Jamal is your guide,” said
New York Times contributor Ben Ratliff in a review of the album.
[27]
Bands and personnel[edit]
Jamal typically plays with a bassist and drummer: his current trio is with bassist Reginald Veal and drummer
Herlin Riley. He has also performed with percussionist
Manolo Badrena.
[28] Jamal has recorded with saxophonist
George Coleman on the album
The Essence; with vibraphonist
Gary Burton on
In Concert; with the voices of the Howard A. Roberts Chorale on
The Bright, the Blue and the Beautiful and
Cry Young; with brass, reeds, and strings celebrating his hometown of
Pittsburgh; and with
The Assai Quartet.
Ahmad Jamal has played with various jazz musicians throughout his extensive career, including: George Hudson, Ray Crawford, Eddie Calhoun, Richard Davis, Israel Crosby, Vernel Fournier, Jamil Nasser, Frank Gant,
James Cammack, Dave Bowler, John Heard, Yoron Israel, Belden Bullock, Manolo Badrena, Gary Burton, and
Idris Muhammad, among others.
Legacy[edit]
Clint Eastwood featured two recordings from Jamal's
But Not For Me album — "Music, Music, Music" and "Poinciana" — in the 1995 movie
The Bridges of Madison County.
Nas' 1994 hit song "The World Is Yours," produced by
Pete Rock, features a very recognizable sample of Jamal's song "I Love Music" from the album
The Awakening.
Common's song "Resurrection," produced by
No I.D., features a sample from Ahmad's solo on the song "Dolphin Dance", also from the album
The Awakening.
Jamal is the main mentor of female jazz piano virtuosa
Hiromi Uehara, known as Hiromi.
Awards and honors[edit]
The French government has inducted Ahmad Jamal into the prestigious
Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, naming him
Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres on June 2007.
In 1994, Jamal received the
National Endowment for the Arts American Jazz Masters award and was also named a Duke Ellington Fellow at
Yale University.
Some of Ahmad Jamal’s more prestigious awards include the following, in chronological order:
[11]
- 1959: Entertainment Award from Pittsburgh Junior Chamber of Commerce
- 1980: Distinguished Service Award from City of Washington D.C., Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, Smithsonian Institution
- 1981: Nomination for the Best R&B Instrumental Performance (“You’re Welcome,” “Stop on By”) from NARAS
- 1986: Mellon Jazz Festival Salutes Ahmad Jamal in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- 1987: Honorary Membership Philippines Jazz Foundation
- 2001: Arts & Culture Recognition Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc.
- 2001: Induction into The Kelly-Strayhorn Gallery of Stars for Achievements as Pianist and Composer from East Liberty Quarter Chamber of Commerce
- 2003: American Jazz Hall of Fame from New Jersey Jazz Society
- 2003: Gold Medallion from Steinway & Songs 150 Years Celebration (1853–2003)
- 2007: Named Living Jazz Legend by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
- 2011: Induction into Downbeat Magazine’s 76th Readers' Poll Hall of Fame
Nydelig soloplate fra Michel Camilo, ikke så stresset og lettere hysterisk som en del andre av hans for øvrig glimrende utgivelser. Denne er mer lyrisk, låtvalget er annerledes og spillestilen reflektert og ikke så heseblesende. Slukcommended.
Går i denne akkurat nå.
Jazz at the Smithsonian , Med Joe Williams !
Da ble det en jazzete formiddag, med bla. denne på spilleren:
Lastet ned denne på Hi Rez - og det swinger!
