Saturday
Morning - pianist, composer, bandleader and NEA Jazz Master Ahmad Jamal's new
eleven-track album produced by Jazzbook Records, featuring his quartet, drummer
Herlin Riley, bassist Reginald Veal and percussionist Manolo Badrena - is his
impressive and invigorating follow-up to his GRAMMY® Award-nominated, 2012 Jazz
Village release, Blue Moon. With over nearly sixty recordings as a leader, this
new album represents another aural chapter in the musical life of this enduring
artist; who after six decades on the scene, is finally focusing more of his
recorded output on his own compositions. "It's
a natural transition that happens when you reach maturity; with greater
confidence in yourself," Jamal says. "So, when you have greater
confidence in yourself, you begin to explore yourself. And now I'm exploring my
own potential."
Save for
his lovely and longing rendition of Duke Ellington's immortal ballad "I
Got it Bad And That Ain't Good," and the Doris Day/Les Brown torch song
"I'll Always Be With You;" his impressionistic interpretation of the
James Moody-associated jazz standard, "I'm In the Mood for Love," and
a "remix" of a funky, three note-motif tune "One," recorded
in the late seventies by Jamal, written especially for him by the late composer
Sigidi Abdallah all of the tracks on Saturday Morning, including the
4/4-Caribbean-cadenced tracks, "Back to the Future," "The
Line," "Firefly," "Edith's Cake," and the title track,
are all written by Jamal. They feature all of the inventions and dimensions of
his unique artistry: his profound and powerful pianist amalgam of Errol Garner,
Nat "King" Cole and Franz Liszt; his intricate,
orchestrally-influenced arrangements, and his signature use of space and
dynamics.
"I
have a vast repertoire," Jamal says. "I started composing when I was
ten years old, and my influences are far reaching: from Duke Ellington and
Billy Strayhorn, Jimmy Lunceford and Fletcher Henderson to [Claude] Debussy and
Maurice Ravel. In Pittsburgh, we didn't have that line between American
classical music and European classical music. We studied it all."
One
track from Saturday Morning bears special mention. "Silver," a
melodic, Latin jazz-tinged composition, is something rare in the Jamal canon: a
tribute written by him to a fellow artist - in this case - to the brilliant
pianist/composer/bandleader Horace Silver, composer of many jazz standards
including "Song For My Father," and "Senor Blues."
"I
wrote it some years ago," Jamal says. "Horace is an ensemble player
like myself. He's a leader, and a very successful writer, to say the least. The
last time I saw him, I was working at the Catalina club in Los Angeles, and
Horace came to see me in a wheelchair ... So that shows you his respect for me,
which is matched by my respect for him."
As
amazing as Ahmad Jamal is, his musicians are also an important component of his
artistry, as evidenced by his current quartet. "My present players are
spectacular men," Jamal says. "Manolo has been off and on with me for
a number of years, and played a long time with Joe Zawinul and Weather Report.
Herlin's first job was with me; I took him out of New Orleans in the eighties.
Reginald Veal was with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center. They all
have great character. And you can't be a great musician unless you have great
character."
Other
equally great musicians of character have played with Jamal over the years,
including bassists Jamil Nasser, James Cammack and fellow NEA Jazz Master
Richard Davis, and drummers Frank Gant and Idris Muhammad. "I've been very
fortunate to have harnessed a whole list of notables and great musicians in my
groups," Jamal says. "What they get from me is how to be supportive.
And what could be more supportive than Vernel Fournier and Israel Crosby?"
It was
the immortal 1958 LP, But Not for Me: Ahmad Jamal Live at the Pershing with the
New Orleans-born Fournier on drums with equally ebullient Crosby from Chicago
on bass, that catapulted the Pittsburgh-born, former child prodigy who left
home at seventeen and scuffled for years in the Windy City, into an overnight
sensation. Jamal was so influential that Miles Davis recorded many
Jamal-associated songs, such as "A Gal in Calico," "But Not for
Me," "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" and "New Rhumba,"
which was transcribed by Gil Evans into a big band arrangement. Generations of
pianists - from Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett to Eric Reed,
Jacky Terrasson and Aaron Diehl, proudly acknowledge his influence.
Unlike
many of his contemporaries, who have, in pianist Hampton Hawes' words become,
"casualties on the road to truth," Ahmad Jamal is a soul survivor,
who lived long enough to reap the benefits of his Olympian artistry - as
evidenced by his 1994 the American Jazz Masters fellowship award from the
National Endowment for the Arts, and his induction into the prestigious Order
of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres,
who named him an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007. He's also
sampled by many hip-hop artists including Kanye West, Gangstarr, Jay-Z, and De
La Soul.
Saturday
Morning represents the latest chapter in an astounding musical life that is far
from over. "I'm very thankful and grateful for my longevity," Jamal
says "And I'm looking forward to more discoveries. Every day is a new
discovery for me, and that's what makes life interesting."
Jamal's Saturday Morning will be released on September 10, 2013.
Upcoming tour dates:
September
1 / Detroit Jazz Festival / Detroit, MI
September
19-21 / Jazz at Lincoln Center / New York, NY
September
27 & 28 / Manchester Craftsman's Guild / Pittsburgh, PA
October
12 / UC Davis Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts / Davis, CA
November
7-9 / Theatre De L'Odeon Europe / Paris, France
January
31 / All Blues / Lucerne, Switzerland
February
1 / All Blues / Geneva, Switzerland
June
23-30 / Costa Jazz Cruise 2014 / Cruise Ship Costa Fascinosa
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