At 62, Ahmad Jamal is one of jazz music's most acclaimed keyboardists. A student of the Erroll Garner school of piano playing, Jamal first rose to prominence in the mid-1950s and his piano stylings have influenced a generation of jazz musicians from Miles Davis to Herbie Hancock. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jamal is a part of a continuum of noted jazz pianists who call that city home; individuals such as Mary Lou Williams, Earl (Fatha) Hines, Erroll Garner and Sonny Clark.

A pianist with a flair for the dramatic, Jamal is a virtuoso performer whose true worth is appreciated during live performances as opposed to his studio recordings. Local jazz fans will get a chance to experience that when Jamal and his trio - bassist James Cammack and drummer Dave Bowler - give two Bermuda Festival performances at City Hall (January 22 and 23). Jamal's sense for the dramatic, complete with his sudden shifts and changes in tone and tempo, adds a heightened, unpredictable element to his live performances. A musician whose impeccable sense of timing and challenging set of improvisations are never understated, Jamal has the ability to magnify elements of music and isolate that which may be taken for granted or overlooked.

As noted jazz critic and historian Stanley Crouch points out: "Form is always the issue in jazz, and no musician has had a more profound effect on the orchestral approach to small groups over the last 25 years than Ahmad Jamal.

He is a virtuoso, but his innovations are found in his arrangements, where songs are realigned into motifs of indeterminate length that are often separated by equally indeterminate interludes.'' Like Erroll Garner before him, Jamal is noted for his orchestral approach to the piano, creating a dramatic plethora of colours which remain unequalled in jazz circles.

One of only a handful of jazz musicians who has had a hit single and also a top-selling album - his 1958 recording At The Pershing stayed in the top 10 charts for 108 weeks and spawned two hit singles, But Not For Me and Poinciana - Jamal's music has spanned the many periods and styles from which jazz has evolved, from bebop to cool jazz, free style to jazz fusion onto the resurgence of mainstream jazz. Yet his piano playing has lost none of its freshness, sophisticated simplicity or vitality.

Tempering his live performances with a mixture of his noted compositions such as Acorn, Right Down To The Wire and, of course, Poinciana, along with songs new to his repertoire, Jamal claims that he never tires of performing old favourites like Poinciana. Although he recorded Poinciana over 34 years ago, for Jamal it's almost as if it was recorded yesterday. As he recently told the St Paul Pioneer Press: "It's always exciting for me to sit down at the piano, and everytime I do, something new happens, something surprises me or I surprise myself. Whenever I play Poinciana, it's like a new song. That's the reason there's no such thing as old music. It's either good or bad. The wonderful thing about music is that it's ageless.'' No caption.

RG MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 1993