Ahmad Jamal with the Assai Quartet

Ahmad Jamal with the Assai Quartet

Roesch Records RR0042

Ahmad Jamal (Piano)
Ephriam Wolfolk (Bass)
Arti Dixson Drums

Assai Quartet
Suzanne Lefevre (Viola)
Peter Biely (Violin)
Jaroslaw Lis (Violin)
Claude Giron (Cello)

Recorded at Morese Recital Hall, Sprague memorial Hall, Yale University (tracks 1-3), Horizon studios (4,5 & 10), and Jamal's house (6 to 9).

1 Temple Court
2 Comp Time
3 Feast
4 Patouche
5 A Short Piece
6 Pots En Verre - No. 1
7 Pots En Verre - No. 2
8 Pots En Verre - No. 3
9 Pots En Verre - No. 4
10 Everybody Knows

I think this is a remarkable album. It's unlike anything else in Jamal's distinguished discography. This makes it even stranger that this is currently OOP.

There are three different performances here. On the first five tracks Jamal's trio performs original integrated compositions with a string quartet, the next four are solo piano improvisations recorded in Jamal's living room, and the final piece is a ballad by producer David Mills with piano and violin. The first three tracks are live, while 4, 5 and 10 were studio recordings.

The tracks seem to have resulted from David Mills' notion that the virtuosity of European art music and jazz could be integrated. Mills teaches improvisation for string players at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, CT USA, and seems to have concocted the idea from his work here. Of course the idea of a clasical-jazz fusion has a long tradition, there was a whole Third Stream thing going on in the 1960s. Here, though, Mills took a classical string quartet made up of conservatoire students at Yale university and put them though some cultural training in African American and African-derived physicality and music from dancer Yaa Johnson and musicologist Richard Harper. He gave the quartet cool amplified instruments, made them improvise in rhythmic settings, and then put them into a live concert with Jamal's trio. There's a short PSB video documentary on this process here

The exuberance of all players is a pleasure to behold, and the music is genuine and unforced. A real joy.

Ahmad Jamal Digital Works

Ahmad Jamal Digital Works

Atlantic Records 781256-2

1. Poinciana
2. But Not For Me
3. Midnight Sun
4. Footprints
5. Once Upon A Time
6. One
7. La Costa
8. Misty
9. MASH (Suicide Is Painless)
10. Biencavo
11. Time For Love
12. Wave

Ahmad Jamal - piano, keyboards
Herlin Riley - drums
Iraj Lashkary - percussion
Larry Ball - bass

I just love the music Ahmad Jamal produced over his fifty-seven year (and counting) career of recording. This album is interesting in the way it tried to harness Jamal's distinctive sound to the then new digital recording techniques and CD format. The cover proudly claims "this is a full digital recording", and the promotional push reminds me of those early 1950s attempts to place jazz at the centre of the hifi and stereo innovations in recording and playback.

If you listen to Jamal's music it is easy to see why Atlantic thought it was ideal for digital recording. The pianist's deft touch and idea of space influenced Miles Davis, and he has always gone to great lengths to produce percussive and precise music with a strong balance to all the instruments in his basically trio format. Here, as was the case for much of his later career, he also uses a percussionist, and like other albums of this period he plays both a Steinway acoustic and electric keyboards (a Fender Rhodes, I think). Larry Ball plays electric bass in a fluid style much suited to Jamal's style, and if the instrumentation and arrangements try just a little to hard to update the Jamal classic sound, it does work.

The tracks are mostly re-recordings of numbers that must have sustained his career, and are a mix of originals, standards, and pop and theme tunes. I'm a real sucker for Poinciana which was probably the first Jamal recording I heard in the 1970s when his records were very hard to find indeed. At least that was true in the UK. This is a great updating (the second it has to be said) nearly thirty years after his initial success. It's hard to imagine that players like Jamal had pop success, but the pianist's early career was supported by Okeh and Chess, although he was also on Impulse!

I know this is a little different from the usual IS shares but give it a listen. This is the first of a few OOP Ahmad Jamal's that I'll make available to add to the close to comprehensive list you can find at Never Enough Rhodes Thanks to Simon for his stirling efforts. I hope you enjoy this one.