Chamber Music Of The New Jazz - Ahman Jamal

 

New Rumba

Chamber Music Of The New Jazz
Ahmad Jamal Trio
Album Production: Dave Usher
High Fidelity (Electronically altered to simulate stereophonic)
Cadet Records CA-602

Piano: Ahmad Jamal
Bass: Israel Crosby
Guitar: Ray Crawford

From the back cover: Ahmad Jamal, though only twenty-five, is probably the most original musical talent to come out of Chicago since the war, although born and educated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With the recent issue of his first LP record he has strengthened his position as an integral part of the new jazz. It has been Jamal's job to show, in his own special way, that the new style can be as delicate and subtle as a glass thread. It is amusing to notice, in this respect, that Errol Garner influenced Jamal in the beginning; however, judging from recent releases, we wee that the distinct style of the young master is now influencing Garner himself.

If we stress the delicacy of Jamal's style, we do not mean that this quality is absent from his contemporaries, they all have it in varying degrees, but no one has pushed the quiet tone to it's limit as he has done, for example, in the opening strains of his Perfedia, or Will You Still Be Mine, and his records on Okeh, which made him famous. His recent releases on Argo seem to point to a second Jamal phase, a new development of the quietly rhythmic. In passing it might be said that his first LP has one side superior to the other, the one with I Get A Kick Out Of You, Jeff, Darn That Dream.

In this accent on the delicate beat Jamal is as different from his contemporaries as Mozar trio is from Beethoven's ninth symphony. In introducing the light lyric, one might almost say the "pastoral" tone, into the new jazz has found a style as original as any of his contemporaries. The predominance of the big register, played softly but with great rhythm, and in simple swing patterns without a great deal of chording and fireworks, is probably the leading formal aspect of his style. His combo, whose most noticeable feature is a guitar doubling for a high-pitched bongo effect, also has a distinct style. This bongo effect is very successful. At its best, it is like listening to bubbling brook on a jazz kick.

In addition to the new style is a great mood in Jamal. His contemporaries are spectacular and complicated in comparison to the quiet joy, the fairylike simplicity and ease of this young pianist. In his tremulous lyrics we find something of a friendly child, something natural and clear. This music, however, is not cheaply relaxing. Its simple beauty is born of a tender sadness, the wonderment of a lost child in short, this music has the rarest form of vibrancy and joy, the kind that knows of tragedy.

At this point Jamal is just starting his musical career. He has been recording for four years and is now only twenty-five years old. He is highly regarded by fellow musicians, like Dave Brubeck, and has the same agent as Louis Armstrong. He has played in many of America's finest night clubs, from coast to coast, including our own Blue Note. Talking with Jamal on the eve of his recent departure for Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and then New York, one had the impression of talk gin to a large child, yet to someone far beyond simple innocence. At times he seems at once young and a century old. Soft-spoken, grave, calm, and ascetic who does not even smoke. He still has something of the elegant and precious about him that is not at all puritanical – he talks with a light humor, but keeps about him a quiet dignity and strength most impressive in this age which counts so heavily on the spectacular. His personality is reflected in his music, which in its clarity, calm and subtle joy, deserves to be called the chamber of contemporary jazz. – Herbert C. Lust

New Rumba
A Foggy Day
All Of You
It Ain't Necessarily So
Medley
I Get A Kick Out Of You
Jeff
Darn That Dream
Spring Is Here