You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Legacy of Ahmad Jamal

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

Join us in this special episode as we honor the life and legacy of legendary jazz pianist and composer, Ahmad Jamal. In this episode, we delve into Jamal's innovative style, groundbreaking performances, and enduring impact on jazz. Explore his unique approach to piano playing, cultural significance as a Black musician, collaborations with jazz legends, and unwavering commitment to his artistry. Celebrate the extraordinary journey of Ahmad Jamal, a true jazz icon whose pioneering spirit continues to inspire generations of musicians and jazz aficionados alike. Want to check out the video for yourself? Watch it here.Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. We're back at it, and we're here to honor and celebrate one of the all-time greats. One of our favorites. Yes, absolutely. Mr. Amma Jamal. Let's get to it. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcasts. Music, advice, celebration. Coming at you. Coming at you. This one is, I think, coming at us a little too soon. I mean, they're all too soon. But we just did one of these episodes for another one of our heroes.

Wayne Shorter and just here a few weeks later, losing another incredible artist. I would say, like Wayne, someone who really helped shape the sound of the second half of the 20th century, no doubt about it. One of the most influential musicians of all time, at least of recorded music, Amma Jamal, passed away at the age of 92, just a couple of days before we're recording this. And I know Peter, for us as pianist, Ahmed was someone. that we bonded over early on when we met and started talking about musicians that we liked. And I actually don't know a musician that I'm friends with that doesn't love Ahmad's music. Absolutely.

So it's pretty much a universally respected corner of what we do as jazz pianists. Absolutely. And I mean, what a thing to have your life and your music and your legacy as Mr. Jamal had and will continue to have all enveloped in one sort of mutual admiration society. I mean, I think as pianists, we feel like he's one of us, and he is, but jazz musicians feel like he's one of them. I think trumpet players, because of his outsized influence specifically on Miles Davis, and then because Miles Davis was so influential on other instrumentalists,

that there's that special bond, but then just to the general jazz-loving, public, but then to that other huge group of folks that are sort of jazz lovers adjacent. Yeah, record producers, DJs, hip-hop artists, somebody who may be musicians. Yeah, somebody who's like, well, you know, once or twice a year I listen to jazz and once or twice a year I eat, you know, Lithuanian food or whatever. But when they do, they want to have the best of the best. Yeah, but not for me on. Yeah, they very well would have had some homage majeal or something that he so directly influenced, like Miles Davis and Jill Evans,

Gil Evans, and, you know, some of the biggest records came directly out of Amad Jamal's conception, you know, translated from Gil Evans and Miles Davis from that great Amad Jamal trio concept. You know, what a beautiful little thing that he crystallized but then was taken to so many different places.

And then this is all getting beyond just his amazing, piano playing. Amazing piano playing. And you know, Amad Jamal as a human, and this is from a few interactions I have with him, but from many musicians that we know, really consistent across the board was one of the most respected, just people. You know, they're always talking about his elegance, his grace that he carried himself, but just his kindness, his generosity, his joy. I know for me, I mean, it was an honor. Do you ever hang? I dig it. I, I did. I, I, I did. I, did get the chance to hang with him a couple times. And the first time I was getting into a van after a festival in France.

This was way back in like the early 90s. I was in my early 20s. And Mr. Jamal was in the van. And I didn't know he was in. And I kind of got in. And I was just like, I mean,

I almost fell backwards out of the van. Yeah. When I saw him. He got a presence, man. He has a presence. But what he did was he scooted over and was like, oh, come on. And I was just like, no, no.

Like, because he was sort of in the back, you know, and like me coming in was and then he was just like, no. And so I was torn between like, like I wanted to sit next to him for sure when I saw who he was just to be around him. But also I felt horrible that I had to kind of push him over. But he was just, you know, people have like that physical kind of, you know, presence, but also the way that they move and this can be so welcoming. And so I got a chance to talk to him on that drive.

And, you know, the next time I saw him, he kind of remembered me. And I just always took that opportunity because he was like, whatever the, what's the opposite of offputting, inputting? That's the way he wore him. Very warm. Yeah. I mean, just like his music. So we're talking about Wayne shorter and Chikri and these Titans that we lost.

It's scary, especially to lose Wayne shorter and then Armad Jamal this close together. But I'm also very... It's a lot of creativity. It's a lot of creative light, both those guys out of the world. For Mr. Jamal, I'm very glad that he lived a very long life and played basically his entire... From when he was very young. I agree. Up until almost the end.

Yeah, some people were saying it's very... It's very sad that he's gone. And it is sad when anybody leaves us, but I feel like, you know, 92 is a really rich, well-lived life, especially his life that he, I think, really got the most out of. At least from looking in from the outside, you never know on the inside. But, like, seeing his output and just being, like you said, like his warmth in person, his presence was just so. really elegant is a great word, regal even, but just someone who's very comfortable in their own skin.

For 90 years is a very, that's a very aspirational place to be. I think too because he was so consistent with his performing, with his recording. You know, he was very much both like a trailblazer in terms of trying new things, especially early on, but also later. Yeah, but also evolving well into

his later stages of his career, yeah. but also very willing and very, you know, to recognize that he had these hits. I mean, like Poinsiana is like one of the, whether people know the title or know that it's Amad Jamal or not, is one of the biggest sort of, you know, I mean, what, you talk about piano trio, jazz piano trio in terms of most recognizable, most enjoyed when that groove comes on. And then obviously that grooves, you know, influence so much, his trio, I mean, influence influence. but I think that his authenticity in terms of what I saw around him and also a lot of sort of the whatever insider feeling I have for him

is I just had a few encounters and discussions with him which were amazing but Reginald Veal and Hurling Riley who I've worked with a lot and over the years were kind of part of his one of his later great trials for many years actually up until almost till the end and they shared a number of stories and just anecdotes from the road great recordings with those too great recordings great videos and I got to hear them live a lot kind of be around them. So I feel like, you know, I mean, ultimately, I think with somebody like, Amma, it's like, you know them through their music.

So even if someone's like, oh, I got to hang with them, it's like, we all got to hang with them. Yeah, a little bit. Through it with the music, you know, especially because he had these, some of the greatest live jazz recordings ever made. Easy. Yeah. Yeah.

In terms of sound and vibe and playing. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's one of those musicians that's, it seems like he's, I was going to say, on another level, but it's really on his own, on his own level. He kind of made his own plane. We were listening to a couple of his albums just earlier here, Peter, for Open Studio folks on our weekly listening session. We're listening to Live at the Pershing and Live at the Blackhawk. And, you know, I drew a direct comparison to Thelonious Monk, which you might not think just because as pianists, they sound so different.

You know, they have such different sounds on the instrument. But I was more, you know, talking about as artists, to me, you know, they were. around the same generation and both cultivated a sound that if you if you leave any kind of space I think it was Benny Green or someone said this on Facebook Amman Amadamal was the only artist that if you leave space you could be accused of trying to rip him off right right you know what I mean especially the way he left the way like so and like with monk there's certain things that if you do yeah it's like oh that's you're just trying to be monk or whatever. It's like he didn't monk didn't invite the whole

invent the whole tone scale. No. If you do it in his presence, I mean, his musical presence. You're going to be accused of trying to rip something. Yeah, same thing. If you don't finish the phrase all the way and let it stroll for a bit, you might be accused of. Which I think is just, it

speaks to just, you know, there's a gear of being a great musician and a pianist and being able to deal with changes and all these technical things that we deal with. And then there's this other gear of having an amazing idea, an amazing concept that is your life's work and he was definitely someone who had that at an extremely high level. So maybe we can get into like what made him, we just talked about space and leaving space, but what are the things that you, when someone says, Amal Jamal, what are the first things

that come to mind musically for you? Well, I think for me it's his, the, his just exquisite piano playing, his piano technique, like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the dynamics that he played with, the touch, all the things that we think only pianists understand, but in reality, when you get to that really high level of technical proficiency,

like Ahmad Jamal had, combined with just great musical ideas, you kind of enter that world up to everyone. You know, when people go and say, like, oh, my God, you know, that was such an amazing pianist. Like, you have to be a virtuoso. That's what it is. He was a virtuoso at the piano.

So, like, take a part, I mean, put aside even the amazing. arrangements and the swing in this and he was a club owner and all these different cool things that are part of it. Hitmaker with the Poinsiana and stuff, but just like he was a virtuoso of the instrument. So he had that, to me, what that, the highest level of that is when you can make just somebody that doesn't know anything about the piano, be like, whoa, that's great. Yeah, and you know, you actually don't get some of the virtuosity on some of those recordings because he was so restrained in his idea. Yeah. Like I would, I think, I think

live at the Pershing, you hear, it's virtuosic. There are certain parts. But if you listen to Live the Black Hawk, for whatever reason, he's feeling that piano. It's a little bit later, 1962 from that era with that trio. It's like towards the end of that trio's run right before Israel Crosby passed away. And he is tearing that piano up in, you know, these beautiful, elegant ways. It's not Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum. It's in his ways.

But he's doing things so cleanly and articulately that you're just like, this is mastery on this instrument. Yeah, to me, it's like his kind of virtuosity. Yeah, it is not the crazy velocity, although he would do that. He can't. No. He has flashes of it in this life. He has flashed. Exactly. So it's more just the completeness of yeah. You know, he can take the velocity, he can take the really incredible voicing. I don't even mean like the what notes he's playing, but how

he voices things out between it. But then also just his ability to really, we're always talking about the piano being a whole orchestra, a whole big band like that ability. So I think once you move up that kind of virtuastic scale, you're going to hear a lot of that coming out, and you hear so much of that. And of course, he's so well known within the trio format at first with bass and guitar and piano, and then with bass and drums and piano, of course. But solo piano, I mean, I heard him do that quite a bit live. Yeah, we listened a little bit, I think it was like about a year ago. We listened to his last album, which was solo, mostly solo.

It was amazing, incredible. Yeah, so it's like he had the concept, the musical concept, obviously for the whole orchestra that was kind of, of you know pushed down into the trio format so beautifully yeah but then he also had the ability to do that with solo piano kind of effortlessly going back and forth between those making them mistake he obviously knew about orchestration and the orchestra and how to get these textures out of things yeah out of the instrument and to me that's what the that when I say you know incredible technique is that it would seem so effortless and I know this the first video we're

gonna look at I was shocked whenever I go back to that to see how young he was that because his sound is so mature because of that control because of that you know patience but authenticity and just sort of beauty and just direct connection between his ideas and the execution of it right to the listener that it's kind of shocking when I when I think of what makes his music so good I actually don't go to virtuosity first or even the piano first I go to the arranging first to me that is the the markings that's the first thing I think about I think about

what's new I think about how simple and brilliant these arrangement is I think about... And kind of unusual, too, though. Super unusual. Like, we think it's so... Because he made it... It was being copped a billion times at this point. We forget how weird that arrangement is, actually.

I think about little things now that we all take for granted. I think about, but not for me in the... Yeah. That kind of thing. You know, that those little touches, the little, the things in all of the things in Point Ciena, all the things in all of the standards, including the one that we're about to listen to and watch, darn that dream. all these little touches that they do,

the signals that they would have between the trio. And then later on, you know, like he said, expanding his sonic palette to all these incredible colors and keeping the same. And the power and the same ideals of orchestration and space and letting his listeners walk away using mostly their imagination to help connect with him and his music. I think those are the things that I'm drawn to.

Well, I'm just thinking of other layers. of it of the virtuosity something else that comes to mind is his ability to and actually we'll be able to hear this if we get to the second example that it could happen to you uh to you which i loved i loved that for so many years but his ability to shift like he kind of had this swing virtuosity where he could shift from like out of time to bam right in the pocket to out and then it was certainly you know always connected with his arranging ability because he could hear the bass and drums if they were locked in, he would shift off and then, ooh, kind of come back in.

Dynamic virtuosity? Oh, yeah, yeah. Incredible. Yeah, nobody played dynamics on the piano like he did. Well, let's have a listen here. We have something queued up. This is from, I think it's from that big TV show. Like jazz casual or jazz?

One of those, I think it was a special. This was the one where, like, Billy Holiday sings in front of Lester Young for the first time in like 20 years or something, and they would have been estranged. That's this one. So this is Amad Jamal. Trouio. This is Renel Fornier on drums, Israel Crosby on the bass, Darn that Dream, 1959. So before he's even 30 here. I think he's 20. 29. 28 or 29 at this point. Here we go. The Amad Jamal Trio in Darn that Dream by Jimmy Van Huisen. With Amad Jamal at the piano. Israel, Crosby, bass. Is that Hank Jones?

It might have been. It's Ben Webster. That's Joe Jones. Yeah. It's Billy Holiday. Wow. Dynamics. Contrae motion. Yeah.

With that left hand. Listen to the... Just think about who he's playing in front of him. They're all up on him. They're touching the piano. The masters. Random hipsters. There's never...

There's never a point where it's just like... They don't stay too long on. And now we're just going to blow and blow these long lines. And all that stuff feels so good. be sitting, I'd sit on each one of those maps. Yeah, for a while, for way too long. He comes right back in time, though, like that ship. Melody, he's never, he's never more than eight bars from the melody.

Yeah, like, it's always somewhere close. Man, Miles stole a lot of stuff from here. Like, you can hear it. Yeah. Yeah, obviously a lot of Count Basie, a lot of Duke Ellington, a lot of Earl Garner. Not King Cole. Yep. Daddy Wilson.

and trills are so clean. Yeah, he always had that same, he would do that when he play like that, even when he was in his 80s. How soft he's playing through here, just letting it. He's got some good fourth and fifth finger. Yeah. Those trills were five and four. And his details, very detail oriented.

You know what's amazing about all of the arrangements of this here? The intricacies of this arrangement, For me, one of the hard things that would be to deal with that would be to then when you get back into a section that is improvisatory, like he's able to switch between these very orchestrated, thought out things into improvisation and being really free in the moment, like on a dime. Yeah. Like when he goes then into just, you know, like they're, and then they're just swinging and he's got some space. Yeah. He's so free.

And then he doesn't miss the hit that comes up eight bars later that's super intricate and the dynamics and everything. Like it's all free. Right. It's all like in the moment. And it's really, really inspiring. Absolutely. And I think that it's, you know, I've thought about this a lot and I've never totally been able to figure out it. It doesn't really matter, but it's kind of a fun thing to look at is like he, Amad Jamal, like you could almost from how he, especially with these videos.

and I'm just thinking back to seeing him live, you can almost not tell when he's doing something that's planned and arranged versus when he's just like coming up with something new. And I know later on, especially he used to have hand signals where there'd be different, you know, possibilities and stuff.

But what's so cool about it is he doesn't act any different. Like when it gets to the more freer and open stuff, he's looking, smiling, playing. However, his, like, there's no affectation that changes. It's all part of one story, one performance. You know, sometimes, a lesser musician would either try to make the stuff that's planned out, like that could sound spontaneous, like, oh, like I'm surprising myself,

ooh, you know, kind of trying to play it up. Yeah. Or at least could when it did get more open to act like they're improvised. You almost can't tell with him. Like, that could have been totally written out. I mean, we know it wasn't because we've heard him do different things. Yeah. And like, you know, if you know his style and you've seen them live, you understand.

But there are parts that are totally planned out. Yeah. But he doesn't treat them any differently, which is important because to the listener, or they aren't. It's just coming at you in real time. Exactly. And it's such an Uber organized thing. And like the drama is built into the arrangement.

You know what I mean? It's not like it's boring. It's all built in. Like they could play it like this because it's all about like the execution. Like when you have something, it's just like when you're playing, you know, lush life or something. It's like, yeah, you can go crazy and go into a bunch of reharmes and stuff. But you better make sure you got something better than the original.

Because the original story is pretty good. Another thing with this. This doesn't work unless it feels amazing. Yeah. His music always. swung. It always felt amazing. The grooves were always locked in. It always felt relaxed. Yeah. And in the pocket. Yeah. And that it just, you just don't get to do all that stuff. And still, I'm trying to say, how would I say this gently? Because you could, this could be really nerdy. This could be very, like, we're doing hits and there's all this stuff. Yeah. It's so exposed for the groove. Yeah, exactly. So like, you could, you could execute on everything and be like, oh, I had nailed that a moderate arrangement. But you missed the soul of it. It's intellectual, but it's sexy. Yeah. And it's

he pulls that off somehow. It's sex, sexual, sexual, sexual, no it is. I mean, it's,

you know, write that down. We're gonna, it's gonna be a new, a new catchphrase. No, you know what I mean, though?

Like, it still has this feeling of like this incredible, sensual, raw feeling, even though there's all these planned out things and all these things

that are difficult to execute in the improvisation, whatever, but it doesn't feel, I'm, there's no words, broish, or, you know what I'm talking about?

Exactly. It's like, it's like a college professor that's talking about something, that actually has a lot of like soul behind it, like mathematics or philosophy. You can turn that into the nerdiest thing possible and you could make it sexy philosophy.

Like you wouldn't take your buddies who are jazz nerds to see this. You'd take someone you wanted to make out with. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Unless those are your, maybe making music music. Unless your buddies that are jazz nerds are the guys that you want to make out with, in which case, go right.

Exactly. This is not bro time. No, it's good. I think we nailed it all that. Well, no, but that's also why, think about this, we talked about the comprehensive, we sort of started out talking about the comprehensive nature of Mr. Jamal's piano technique, you know, and how like as pianists, we're going to, you know, that's going to be the starting point. But then also hitting on the influence on Miles Davis. Yep. And then Miles Davis is by using these concepts.

And look, we can't, we'd be remiss and we mentioned it quickly, but like the Duke Ellington, Amad Jamal influence is, is right there. Yeah. And also Monk, because I think they were around the same. The monk was a little older. A little older, but it came up around the same time. Right, but there's definitely some monk influences on Ahmad Jamal. You can hear that. Mack and Cole, as we said.

We were talking about Miles and Ahmad's influence on Miles Davis. And, you know, famously the space, right? That Miles, after hearing the Ahmad Jamal trio started, you know, really incorporating more space. But just a shout out to Miles in that Miles is his own artist as well. Sure. Kind of took that idea and certainly made it his own. Right. And it's really like, it's just ideas that are out there.

Yeah. You know, it wasn't like, I mean, I think that Miles, well, he talked about this. I mean, I've seen him, you've seen him in interviews. He talked about this in autobiography is like he recognized. It's kind of like it wasn't necessarily something that Amad Jamal invented. No, Lewis Armstrong left a lot of space too. Exactly. But the way he put it together with the trio, I mean, the genius of Miles was he wasn't just looking for like Cliver Brown or Charlie Parker Horn player that he was influenced by.

Like, he was looking for a bigger concept. How do you orchestrate a band? So he didn't just look at a quintet and say, well, I'm going to create this. He had a quintet. And then he did stuff with the mini big band with Jill Evans. But it's like he was just like, what is something that's beautifully orchestrated

that's a band that's at the highest level that I can take and that's already done this that I love? And that was kind of his love of a lot. It's like, how do I take that and use that and connect with that with his own music and bands? You can't and you can't not reference Count Basie listening to this as well. I think especially,

you know that we're just talking about the overall sound that's swinging and feels good you know using the top of the piano lots of space and then just a swing in rhythm section behind you that's that's count bassie oh absolutely his his archetypes and i mean too that's what i was going to say like we started out talking about just the virtuosity as a pianist then as a you know as an arranger as a leader of trios and and you know solo piano all this stuff but i would just say that i think that because Ahmad Jamal was so effortless in how he went to different venues and playing situations. He was very much associated with playing in like really hipster, smallish clubs like the spotlight, the, you know, the Black Hawk in San Francisco. He had his own club, the Alhambra briefly.

That's an amazing recording live with Alhambra. I think he only had the club for one or two years, you know. The Pershing, ever heard of that record? I'm pretty sure you're familiar with that. But it's like where you can feel, you can hear the glasses clinking. you know, but you can also like kind of feel him like demanding the attention, but in a really interesting and kind of authentic way to what we like to think of the best of what jazz clubs can be.

They're not silent, but they're not like people talking about, when's the bands? Oh, they already start. You know, it's none of that nonsense. But there's an attentiveness there that is, you know, palpable in a way, a connection that harkens back to another error that he always was able to do. But then, of course, when he started going to the concert halls and stuff, He was able to bring that same vibe.

And that's where I actually heard him. I never got a chance to hear him in a club. Oh, man. I heard him a few times at Jazz St. Louis here, which was incredible. I bet. Yeah, no, I never got a chance to hear that. I heard him around that time, but it was always like a festival outside or something. My dad heard him at the Majestic.

He actually played there. Yeah, yeah. That first time. Now, I got to hear him a couple times. Balcony right above the piano, amazing, like, to be, you know, 20 feet above his shoulders, just watching him play. And they'd usually bring a nine foot in, I think. for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would bring in a

steyway for that. It was the old stage. The old stage, yeah. I love that old stage. Yeah. Well, this was great, man. Do you want to go out on another track? Yeah, I'll just put a little of this. I love this. It could happen to you. I never know, because I think this was a huge track when I was coming up or with, well, we were listening to you, but this is from Live of the Spotlight, 1958,

59, sometimes around there. But this is it could happen to you. So we want to just, you know, thank you and honors to the master, Mr. Jamal. For real. And the rich legacy that he leaves all of us and to the fans mostly but to the musicians to everybody you know no his music will live on forever his beautiful family and his descendants all of us yeah kind of his descendants no it's past he's passed light on to thousands if not hundreds of thousands or millions

of people for sure yeah but musicians that'll carry you know parts of his torch forever absolutely so amazing all right yeah you'll hear it You hear it.