Ahmad Jamal - "Blue Moon" (CD 2012) "effervescent trinkles, his mellifluous showers"

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Anyone else bought this (much praised) album? Thoughts? The sleve note claims it's a return to Ahmad's Impulse days (e.g "Awakening") but it seems to me to be a lot less focused and subtle. But, a bit of a grower and would prob. appeal to young people. Like Ian. With its youthful rocky 2012 beat and catchy tunes.

BN.


"The veteran octogenarian pianist Ahmad Jamal has been playing an abundance of gigs in recent times, and this album acts as a timely documentation of his current working band. The sessions were recorded late last year in New York City, with Jamal’s stable quartet line-up. Bassman James Cammack might be missing, but Reginald Veal is now shoeing in seamlessly.

Strangely, Herlin Riley’s brutally cracking drum contributions ram home a straight-ahead rock-style beat for much of the duration, and Manolo Badrena’s highly dramatic percussion can sometimes be rather disconcerting. Maybe this is a trick of the mix, a quirk of the production, as when this very combo are caught live, that same aspect isn’t particularly noticeable: the quartet is usually comprised of equal voices. The most extreme example of this recorded tendency arrives with This Is the Life, as the snare hits with an alarming insistency, the two factions within the quartet sounding like they’re in a warring stand-off. The leader himself is, contrastingly, flying unfettered across the entire space, the epitome of improvisatory freedom… an abstract octopus.

This all sounds more like the new Robert Glasper album than the new Robert Glasper album itself. Jamal’s particular combination here is like the work of a much younger player, in tune with a co-existent funk-improv expression. Such is the vitality of his effervescent trinkles, his mellifluous showers." ~ from the BBC Review.

[Alyn_Shipton]

I quite liked some tracks - the title track itself, for example, doesn't suffer from the mix problems mentioned by the reviewer, and Riley (having a new lease of life since he left Wynton's entourage) swings hard and jousts with Badrena. But it has the usual Jamal thing of quite a lot of lengthy tracks and his playing with space and dynamics has got a bit formulaic over time. I think his early 90s efforts on Telarc along with the classic Criosby / Fournier trio are probably a better bet. But he's worth catching live...apart from McCoy not too many masters of that era still playing and playing well.

[Ian Thumwood]

Bluesnik / Alyn

I read this review too and was intrigued by the comments. What fascinated me was that I saw this band at Vienne last year and, despite the creeping commercialism which has started to rob this festival of it's identity, Jamal's was one of the best sets. There are sevrral points I would like to make. First off, one of the highlights was the interplay between Badrena and Riley - this wasn't a trio plus percussion but very much a quartet. Not quite sure about trying to "get down with the kids" but this kind of jazz is relatively time-less. After the concert, both Riley and Veal visited the appartment of my drum-playing friend Alain Dumont and he was ecstatic in his enthusiam of the band and of Riley in particular. (BTW. Alain is a pro-musician who has played with he likes of Nathan Davis and Hank Mobley as well as teaching in the Lyon Conservatoire - bascially he knows his stuff!) This group's sense of time is amazing and I totally agree that there is something about this generation of piano players in the almost casual approach to feeling time. Hank Jones was another good example.

With regard to the younger generation of players, I feel that the likes of Glasper, Gerald Clayton and Taylor Eigsti also seem to relate back to this earlier way of "feeling" the groove on the piano. Clayton is probably an even better example than Glasper and someone I would strongly recommend to Bluesnik if you haven't checked his out yet. He is refreshingly modern whilst at the same time offering an approach to the piano that recollects the pre-McCoy / Herbie era. No rocky beats (that is SOOOOOOOOOOO passe) but definately wired into more contemporary dance beats. Jazz has always checked out popular music in this respect and I think it keeps the music fresh. Certainly I feel Gerald Clayton would be a big hit with Bluesnik - seriously.

My final point is this. Jamal was on a double bill at Vienne with the Japanese pianist Hiromi, a kind of Pokemon with strangler's arms. Whilst Hiromi has garnered fulsome praise from the likes of Chick Corea and has a stage personality akin to a character from one of those Studio Ghibli films, for all her technique, the end result is extremely clinical and cold. I liked her reworking of a Beethoven sonata but there were times that I found myself switching off (even more than when listening to Hank Mobley!!!!) and she just seemed like a machine. In comparison, Jamal said more in his first tune than Hiroma managed to get over in her entire set. Ok, we may all be delighted with her endearing personality but when it comes to the crunch, she was no match for Jamal irrespective of whether he is in his 80's. There is something plastic and artificial about her work too. (I much prefer her fellow countrywoman, the brilliant Eri Yamamoto as a pianist. ) Sometimes less is definately more.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Ian ~ v.interesting post/points. I bought the Jamal CD mainly because I'm a big fan of his "Awakening" Impulse CD from c. 1969? which has some remarkable interplay and a knife-edge "feel" from him and his then trio of Nasser and Gant. I'm still making my mind up about "Blue Moon". To my ears (OK, non pianist) he sometimes sounds a bit adrift, flip and even inaccurate and the latinesque percussion can get a (more than) bit annoying and in the way, but it is certainly a grower and he seems to be having a hell of time. At his age!

Worth checking out.

BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

jamal is special .... his sense of the groove is rarely equalled .... especially then [Fournier Crosby] but also now ..

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

that track caught me like the Cohen Old Ideas album .... triple distilled ear worm .... here try this!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

DAVE GELLY review of "Blue Moon" in the Guardian...

"These days, there is less of the spare, meticulously placed simplicity that made Jamal a major influence on Miles Davis, although his piano style remains notably clear and direct. He still does extraordinary and fascinating things to old standards, too. There's a really weird treatment of "The Gipsy" * here, which I just can't get out of my head. But it's as an impressionist composer that the latterday Ahmad Jamal really excels. Two of these pieces in particular, "Autumn Rain" and "Morning Mist", are quite exquisite. He has a way of creating slow-moving harmony that exudes gentle calm."

* He also does a neat job on "Invitation" that sticks in the ear.

BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i have been slowly picking up albums by Jamal over the years ... he has a substantial discgraphy and career stretching from the early 50s to now!


...and the AMG piece reminded me that Miles Ahead has some orchestrated Jamal ..... 'New Rumba'

[Ian Thumwood]

Here's some Gerald Clayton:-

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

and you can hear the new Glasper album here