Rob Adams meets an influential Pittsburgh-born jazz pianist who finds
success inconvenient
AHMAD Jamal's concert today at the Fruitmarket, Glasgow, is a rare
Scottish event. It will be the Pittsburgh-born pianist's first date here
and, if he has his way, it seems, his last. Thanks to the interest
roused by his new album Live in Paris, Jamal is currently in the middle
of the most hectic schedule of his long career -- and he is not enjoying
it one jot.
Only a jazz musician could be so contrary as to find success
inconvenient, and Jamal is contrary. In conversation he talks of loving
the music but hating the business, yet he once owned a record company
and has often dreamed off getting out of music to concentrate on ''other
entrepreneurial interests.'' Then he laments the financial hardships of
working in jazz, only to claim later to have always had more work than
he can handle.
Jamal (he was born Fritz Jones but adopted the Muslim name in the
early 1950s) began playing around Pittsburgh when times were hard. ''I
was 10 or 11. We played for quarters. If we got 50 cents, that was a
fortune.''
Growing up in a town which produced such jazz talents as Errol Garner
(his greatest influence), Billy Eckstein, and Art Blakey, he ''couldn't
help but play music. It was all around me.'' Garner's mother and his own
were close friends and among the customers on the young Jamal's
newspaper round were the family of Duke Ellington's
right-hand-man-to-be, Billy Strayhorn.
In the 1950s Jamal's trio became something of a blueprint for others
to follow. Miles Davis openly acknowledged his admiration for Jamal's
playing (and, some have argued, owed his success to his adoption of
Jamal's sophisticated yet simple approach), not to mention his
plundering of Jamal's repertoire.
This, says Jamal, was flattering. ''Especially coming from one of the
principal figures of twentieth-century music. But it didn't start and
stop with Miles,'' he says, changing his tone. Oscar Peterson, Ramsey
Lewis, Monty Alexander all helped themselves liberally. ''My tune Billy
Boy has been used over and over again. I recorded it in 1951 and I've
heard 10, maybe 15, recordings which copy my version note for note --
and that includes Oscar Peterson's.''
While musicians have always recognised Jamal's talents, critical and
audience acclaim has usually been more muted. Until now. Once the
current round of touring is completed Jamal plans to perform for four
months of the year and spend the rest of his time at home in upstate New
York, composing at his ''two wonderful Steinways and looking at the deer
and turkeys that come to visit me every day.''
Is this his true intention or more contrariness? His own summation of
his playing style may offer a clue. ''I'm a story teller -- as are most
of the artists who have been around as long as I've been,'' he says.
''That's the difference between the boys and the men.''
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