Biography:

Ahmad Jamal (born Frederick Russell Jones, July 2, 1930 – April 16, 2023)^[1][2] was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator. For six decades, he was one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz.^[3]

Biography

Early life

Jamal was born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 2, 1930.^[1] He began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano.^[4] Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he describes as greatly influencing him. His Pittsburgh roots have remained an important part of his identity (“Pittsburgh meant everything to me and it still does,” he said in 2001)^[5] and it was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. Jamal also studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen,^[6] at which point he was recognized as a “coming great” by the pianist Art Tatum.^[7] When asked about his practice habits by a critic from The New York Times, Jamal commented that, “I used to practice and practice with the door open, hoping someone would come by and discover me. I was never the practitioner in the sense of twelve hours a day, but I always thought about music. I think about music all the time.”^[8]

Beginnings

External media
Audio
Ahmad Jamal On Piano Jazz, August 29, 2008, Piano Jazz[9]
Eric in The Evening; Ahmad Jamal, interview, January 18, 1989, Open Vault at WGBH[11]
Video
Ahmad Jamal – Interview – “American Classical Music”, April 27, 2010 underyourskindvd[10]

Jamal began touring with George Hudson’s Orchestra after graduating from George Westinghouse High School in 1948.^[12] He joined another touring group known as The Four Strings, which disbanded when violinist Joe Kennedy Jr. left.^[8] In 1950 he moved to Chicago^[12] and performed intermittently with local musicians Von Freeman and Claude McLin, and solo at the Palm Tavern, occasionally joined by drummer Ike Day.^[13]

Born to Baptist parents, Jamal discovered Islam in his teens. While touring in Detroit, where there was a sizable Muslim community in the 1940s and 1950s, he became interested in Islam and Islamic culture. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950.^[12] In an interview with The New York Times a few years later, he said his decision to change his name stemmed from a desire to “re-establish my original name.”^[14] Shortly after his conversion to Islam, he explained to The New York Times that he “says Muslim prayers five times a day and arises in time to say his first prayers at 5 am. He says them in Arabic in keeping with the Muslim tradition.”^[15]

He made his first records in 1951 for the Okeh label with The Three Strings (which would later also be called the Ahmad Jamal Trio, although Jamal himself prefers not to use the term “trio”): the other members were guitarist Ray Crawford and a bassist, at different times Eddie Calhoun (1950–52), Richard Davis (1953–54), and Israel Crosby (from 1954). The Three Strings arranged an extended engagement at Chicago’s Blue Note, but leapt to fame after performing at the Embers in New York City where John Hammond saw the band play and signed them to Okeh Records. Hammond, a record producer who discovered the talents and enhanced the fame of musicians like Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie, also helped Jamal’s trio attract critical acclaim.^[12] Jamal subsequently recorded for Parrot (1953–55) and Epic (1955) using the piano-guitar-bass lineup.

Credits: