AHAMAD Jamal, one of the most graceful, articulate, and influential pianists and composers in modern jazz, died on Sunday, according to his wife, Laura Hess-Hey, and their daughter, Sumayah Jamal.
The 92-year-old musician died in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts, following a battle with prostate cancer.
Jamal began a professional music career at the age of 14 and has since established a distinct sound that transcends genre boundaries.
Minimalism, classical, modernist, and pop: Ahmad was compared to Thelonious Monk in terms of his capacity to innovate and inspire other musicians: his piano was sampled by De La Soul, Jay-Z, Common, and Nas.
Miles Davis, in his memoir wrote, “All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.” He says that Jamal “knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, and the way he phrases notes and chords and passages”.
Jamal, who was born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh in 1930, began playing music at the age of three when an uncle challenged him to imitate him on the family piano.
He consumed "reams of sheet music" in various genres given to him by his aunt and began formal study at the age of seven, then began writing at the age of 10.
He was captivated by the works of French classical composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. By his early teens, he was performing in nightclubs.
“I’d do algebra during intermission, between sets,” he once told Down Beat magazine.
He moved to Chicago in 1950 after marrying and converted to Islam from his family's Baptist faith, becoming one of the first African American entertainers to publicly express his Muslim faith.
In an interview with Time magazine, he explained why he chose the name Ahmad Jamal:
“I haven’t adopted a name. It’s a part of my ancestral background and heritage. I have re-established my original name. I have gone back to my own vine and fig tree.”
Jamal spent his entire life playing jazz, which he referred to as "American classical music," in the house band for Chicago's Pershing Hotel lounge, a Black-owned favourite of Sammy Davis Jr and Billie Holiday, and where he recorded his 1958 breakthrough album, Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing: But Not For Me.
The record sold one million copies and was on the Billboard magazine charts for more than 100 weeks, making Jamal a household name at a time when rock'n'roll was on the rise and jazz was on the decline.
Jamal continued to tour ceaselessly in the 1980s and 1990s, releasing multiple live recordings and cementing his position as one of the finest living jazz musicians.
“It’s a divine gift, that’s all I can tell you. We don’t create, we discover – and the process of discovery gives you energy … Rhythm is very important in music, and your life has to have rhythms too,” he says in an interview with The Guardian.
“You can exercise properly, eat properly – but the most important thing of all is thinking properly. Things are in a mess, and that’s an understatement; so much is being lost because of greed.
“There are very few authentic, pure approaches to life now. But this music is one of them, and it continues to be.”
He was named Jazz Master in 1994 by the National Endowment for the Arts and won a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2017.
His first daughter Mumeenah Counts died in 1979. He is survived by his third ex-wife and manager, Laura Hess-Hay; Sumayah, his daughter with his second ex-wife; and two grandchildren. – The Vibes, April 18, 2023
