During the eight decades of his remarkable career, Ahmad Jamal, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 92, created great records, inspired Miles Davis, and his riffs were used by young rappers of the 1990s.

Awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Grammy for his work, Jamal has left an indelible mark on jazz. This approach contrasted sharply with the music known as bebop that swept the jazz world when Jamal began his career as a teenager in the mid-1940s.

Critic Stanley Crouch wrote that bebop founder Charlie Parker was the only musician “more important to the development of a new form of jazz than Ahmad Jamal”. Miles Davis found great inspiration in his work: in Miles’ 1989 autobiography, the legendary trumpeter reported that “he struck me with his sense of space, his ease of touch, and the way he articulates notes, chords and passages.” Davis covered Jamal’s “New Rhumba” on his 1957 classic Miles Ahead recording.

Jamal was born Fredrick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh on July 2, 1930. When he was 3 years old, his uncle suggested that he copy what he played on the piano, and he did. He began formal piano lessons at the age of 7 and quickly entered the advanced curriculum. In a 2018 interview, he said: “I studied Art Tatum, Bach and Beethoven. I had to know European and American classical music. My mother was rich in spirit, and she led me to another rich person: my teacher, who founded the country’s first African American opera troupe.

Jamal grew up in Pittsburgh. Legendary pianists Earl Hines, Errol Garner and Mary Lou Williams lived in the same area. As a young man, he delivered newspapers to the home of composer Billy Strayhorn. When Jamal began his professional career at the age of 14, Art Tatum called him “the future piano”. During a tour of Detroit, Jamal, who was born into a Baptist family, converted to Islam and changed his name.

In 1958 he released the landmark recording At The Pershing: But Not For Me. It is one of the most popular and influential recordings in jazz history. It remained on the Billboard Top 200 album chart for a full 108 weeks.

Economic problems

He founded record companies, a management company, a nightclub and a restaurant in Chicago, the Alhambra, although the venture lasted less than a year. In keeping with their religious beliefs, the Alhambra did not serve alcohol, which likely hastened its downfall.

The financial difficulties of the Alhambra marked the beginning of a dark period in Jamal’s life, during which he was removed from the concert scene for almost three years. The club closed in December 1961 – three months later he filed for divorce from his wife, whom he married when he was 17 years old. Five years of legal battles followed, during which Jamal was arrested and charged with non-payment of alimony. He was later acquitted. In 1963, he was hospitalized after an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. It wasn’t until 1964 that he started touring and recording again.

Beyond the Jazz World

Jamal despised the term “jazz” and preferred American classical music to describe his work – this was one of the hallmarks of his style. In a 2001 New York Times article, Ben Walzer, pianist and head of curriculum at the University of Chicago, noted: “When we listen to his music, excerpts from Ravel’s Bolero and Fay’s Fire Dance are mixed with blues, standards, bebop melodic lines and “massaliotids”.

The respect with which Jamal was treated extended far beyond the jazz world. Clint Eastwood used two tracks from “But Not For Me” on the soundtrack to his film The Bridges of Madison County. At the same time, the hip-hop world borrowed Jamal’s music. Tracks such as De La Soul’s “Stakes Is High” and Nas’ “The World Is Yours” feature Jamal’s piano riffs.

According to NPR, New York Times