Ahmad Jamal With Voices

 

Gypsies In The Wind

Ahmal Jamal With Voices

The Bright, The Blue And The Beautiful

Conducted by Hale Smith

Trio & Vocal Arrangements by Ahmad Jamal

Lover Man & Yesterdays adapted for voices from Joe Kennedy arrangements

Produced by Richard Evans

Recording Engineer: George Piros

Cover Photo: Don S. Bronstien

Back Cover Photos by Charles Stewart

Album Design: Jerry Griffith

Supervision: Dick LaPalm

Cadet Records LPS-807

1968

Ahmad Jamal - Piano

Jamil Sulieman - Bass

Frank Gant - Drums

The Howard A. Roberts Chorale

From the back cover: Nobody laughs when Ahmad Jamal sits down to play. A lot of folks may cry – over money wasted on piano lessons and the struggle with Warsaw Concerto (Simplified Version). For who can match the lighting speed of Ahmad's fingers creating arpeggio's faster than most of us think? Who else can spontaneously turn Jerome Kern's Yesterdays into a concerto for nostalgia and then in the next moment, blow fresh air into the swinging Wild Is The Wind? Who else can play like the man?

The creative genius of pianist Jamal was definitely recorded in an earlier Cadet album called Extensions, an album which caused a lot of pianists to slam down the wallboard of their Steinways, smashing their fingers and giving up for good. (That album should be around the spindle of every turntable in the country.

Then, mated with voices, the Ahmad Jamal Trio found another extension – in an album called Cry Young – and this LP won new fans all around the world.

The Bright, The Blue And The Beautiful is a sequel to success. It is the Janus brainchild of A&R genius Richard Evans and the highly respected producer Dick LaPalm. From the whistle-clean intro to Wild Is The Wind through the board fade of By Myself, there is a blend of bright and blue and beautiful things. The swinging freedom of Billy Taylor's newest anthem I Wish I Knew. And the too-seldom heard Cole Porter piece At Long Last Love. Then, there is new material. A Ballad For Beverly makes you want to meet the lady. There is a romping tribute Of Bass I Love. Nobody has so sensitively interpreted Love Man since Lady Day cried it. There is a haunting soprano voice on Never Let Me Go. And the vocal group weaves throughout a mile or so of microgroove some of the best lyrical lines – recalling for us the Harbach poetry of Yesterdays (McCartney And Lennon didn't write this one), the story of Gypsies In The Wind, and, to mention it again, the sophisticated imageries of At Long Last Love.

But it is the Ahmad Jamal Trio which headlines here. Drummer Frank Gent lets his cymbal say "Amen" each time he has completed leading everybody through prayer-meeting. Bassist Jamil Sulieman walks straight ahead, picking out the best of the chord roots, tic-tac-toe style. Ahmad Jamal has fun, too. There is a humorous quote from It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. The man should know! There is a fragment lifted from Carol Of The Bells. Most of the time the improvisations that leap from Ahmad' brain to his fingers come from nowhere but the man's ingenious mind. They just happen: the blue notes that color his ballads, the extended arpeggios that always stop at the right place, the swinging phrases that turn unexpectedly in our world of cliches, the understatement (a product of great discipline in jazz) and the rush of sixty-four notes when they're called for.

After listening to Ahmad Jamal, it is no surprise that so many piano players are talking up kazoo.

When you hear this album, you can be sure of three things – it's bright, blue and beautiful. And another thing, it's wild! – Loonis McGlohon, Director Of Music, WBT, Charlotte, N. C.

Wild Is The Wind

Ballad For Beverly

Of Bass I Love

Yesterdays

I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel To Be Free)

At Long Last Love

Never Let Go

Gypsies In The Wind

Lover Man

By Myself