The Ultimate Ahmad Jamal Playlist

You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians

Jazz pianists Adam Maness and Peter Martin dive into their favorite Ahmad Jamal tracks to curate the 'Ultimate Ahmad Jamal Playlist,' celebr

Key takeaways

• Ahmad Jamal's career spanned 72 years, from 1948 to 2020, showcasing unmatched longevity and consistency in jazz.
• Jamal's mastery of time, touch, melody, and space redefined piano trio dynamics and influenced icons like Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Nas, and J Dilla.

Main topics

• Ahmad Jamal's legacy in jazz piano
• The impact of his trio recordings on modern jazz

Notable quotes

"Ama Jamal, a master of taste, time, and touch. A hero to Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Nas, and J Dilla."

"He's never 10 seconds away from the melody. Whether he's playing the melody or during his solos. Or even when he's not playing anything. You can tell."

Conclusion

Maness and Martin conclude that Ahmad Jamal's music represents a pinnacle of

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Ama Jamal, a master of taste, time, and touch. A hero to Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Nas, and J Dilla. This is the ultimate Ama Jamal playlist. Speaker 1 (0:15) I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Music Explored. Explored, brought to you today by the You'll Hear It Players Club, Peter. This is a brand new set of lessons that I began this season of the podcast where I'm going to do a selection of songs that we're going to do throughout the season, and I'm going to teach you how to play them. From a very basic level. So if you have been thinking, I wish I could dust off my instrument and learn how to play, I don't know, Led Zeppelin's The Ocean or Radiohead's Weird Fishes or Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely? Well, that one I know already, but yeah. Well, you do. But man, lock in, plug in because we're going to... Let's plug into the Players Club. Plug into the Players Club. You can click the link in the description to learn more about... players club. Go to you'll Speaker 2 (0:56) hear Speaker 1 (0:56) it. Yeah. Speaker 2 (0:57) Go to Speaker 1 (0:57) you'll hear Speaker 2 (0:57) it.com. Sorry. I had to throw that in there. Speaker 1 (0:59) That's right. One more bit of housekeeping before we get going on this incredible lesson while you're at you'll hear it.com. Leave us a voicemail because we are going to do a mailbag episode coming up and we want to hear from you. Speaker 2 (1:09) Right. And you might be scared because you're like, Oh, my voice is going to be on the. if I leave you a speak pipe or a message that your voice is going to be on the podcast. And you would be right to be scared. It will be. But think about us. Our voice is all over this for an hour every week. So Speaker 1 (1:22) join the party. Speaker 2 (1:23) Yeah, join the party. Plug Speaker 1 (1:24) in. Speaker 2 (1:25) No, but you get a chance. Don't be nervous. You get a chance to submit it first. I know a lot of people think, oh, I'm just, I'm talking and it's being recorded. You have a chance to approve it or not. Speaker 1 (1:35) Yeah, you can edit it. You can approve it. You can redo it. Yeah. I don't know about editing. Don't get excited, buddy. No, you can literally plug in, Speaker 2 (1:41) Peter. Speaker 1 (1:42) Plug Speaker 2 (1:42) in. Speaker 1 (1:42) Okay. Today's an exciting day. Speaker 2 (1:44) Oh, my Speaker 1 (1:44) gosh. I'm so excited. I know. Speaker 2 (1:46) I know you're about to say that, but it really is. I mean, we're talking about not only a legend, a gentleman. Goat. A goat, for sure. A steward of jazz piano for multiple generations, an OG, but really one of the most influential musicians that we're ever going to talk about on this pod. in several different ways beyond just what we're going to celebrate, which is mostly going to be this incredible pianism. Is that a word? We don't know. We say the word. Do you know what I mean by it? Yes. So it becomes a word. Speaker 1 (2:14) You're talking about the vegetable, the pea? The snow pea? Speaker 2 (2:17) Pianism. Speaker 1 (2:18) Pianistic abilities. Oh, yeah, yeah, Speaker 2 (2:20) yeah. And we're talking about none other than... Speaker 1 (2:22) Ahmad Speaker 2 (2:22) Jamal. Speaker 1 (2:22) The great. The great one. The great man, Ahmad Jamal. I mean, he is a hero to both of us. He's Speaker 2 (2:28) a Speaker 1 (2:28) hero to most... modern jazz musicians, and a lot of modern musicians because of his incredible sensibilities. Like, one of the greatest masters of time, touch, feel, melody, improvisation, voicings, taste. He ran an amazing band for years. I love this. One of the stats that we have here on our worksheet for this episode, Peter, is that Ahmad Jamal was active playing and recording music from 1948 to 2020. Yes. That's 72 years. That's longer than Queen Elizabeth's reign in the 20th century, which is astounding. That's right. Speaker 2 (3:05) And he earned his. He wasn't just born into it. He really did earn it. Speaker 1 (3:09) And if you're not familiar with Ahmad Jamal, first of all, where have you been? But second of all, I'm envious of you today because you get to experience some of the great music of the 20th century for the first time. Yeah, and Speaker 2 (3:20) I think there's actually probably a lot of people don't feel shameful if you're not. I think there's a lot of people that know the name and haven't really heard. Well, actually, they have heard. And I think that that's going to happen pretty quick. But, yeah, I think he's one of those artists that really has name recognition, but a lot of people haven't dug in. So, like you say, Envy is for sure. It's going to be – this is a great time because I think we have – an incredible, what do we have, 10 or 11 tracks here? We've got Speaker 1 (3:47) 10 tracks here. Five each. Are we really naming this the ultimate? Now I'm nervous. That was your idea, buddy. Was it? The ultimate I'm on Jamal playlist. When Speaker 2 (3:54) we have the pre-production meetings, I'm so excited, I'm so Speaker 1 (3:57) cocky, but then we get in here and I'm like, I want to do Mr. Jamal. Right. Well, this is truly a playlist because of your first pick, Peter, is not anything on an album. Speaker 2 (4:06) Yes. Speaker 1 (4:06) So this was from 1960 CBS Studios. The legendary. Legendary CBS Studios. And this was from a television broadcast that brought together a lot of famous jazz musicians. I remember watching. Speaker 2 (4:16) Oh, Speaker 1 (4:16) the line was incredible. Yeah, I remember. Did you have Speaker 2 (4:18) the VHS? Speaker 1 (4:18) I had the VHS. They used to show the VHS at music school, like in classes all the time. Lazy teachers. They've shown footage of this. Ken Burns used some of this footage for his jazz documentary. No, it's actually incredible. But there's just Speaker 2 (4:32) because there's so many. Yeah, Lester Young, Ben Webster. Legendary artists. Papa Joe Jones. Yeah, Speaker 1 (4:38) everybody was there. Billie Holiday, Speaker 2 (4:40) that's right. Speaker 1 (4:40) Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's beautifully filmed. I mean, dare I say, Speaker 2 (4:45) like for the technology they had for video and for audio and how it was broadcast, it's incredible how good it was. I mean, really holds up against a lot of the camera work today. And I don't know. It's Speaker 1 (4:57) good. It's really good. Love links to it. So, of course, it's on YouTube. And we'll watch a little bit of it. So this is the trio. Ahmad Jamal on piano and some names that we're going to hear pretty much the entire day. Yeah. Israel Crosby on the bass and Vernel Fournier on the drums. Yeah. And this is, the title that we got from this is just called Excerpts from the Blues. Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:20) Second part of Jazz from 61, the Ahmad Jamal Trio. Excerpts from the blues by Ahmad Jamal. Speaker 2 (5:27) Other Speaker 1 (5:46) musicians hanging out in the background. I Speaker 2 (5:47) think Speaker 1 (5:47) that's Joe Jones right there. Speaker 2 (6:14) Tasty AF. Speaker 1 (6:20) The arrangements make it. The arrangements are what makes this trio so special. Speaker 2 (6:33) How do you like your blues? Major? Major 7? Why not? That shot. If you're on audio, make sure you go check this out on YouTube. Renaud Fournier there. Rush Speaker 1 (6:59) master. Oh, my Speaker 2 (7:00) God. Speaker 1 (7:01) Workshop Speaker 2 (7:01) technique. Speaker 1 (7:04) Ben Webster. Yeah. For our listeners, they keep cutting to, like, just jazz legends. Ben Webster, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Some hipster guy in the background. Space, too. So much space in this movie. Speaker 2 (7:52) Okay, we started out right, didn't we? Yeah, I mean, for your first poll, that was... Oh, yeah, by the way, this is my... Yeah. Is this a competitive situation? It's not a Speaker 1 (7:59) competitive. It's not like the draft, because we... No, Speaker 2 (8:01) because Speaker 1 (8:01) I've already won. Speaker 2 (8:02) It's not competitive. Speaker 1 (8:03) Boom! Well, you picked five, and then I picked five. So I had to kind of deal with your five picks. Oh, I'm looking at this list. Somehow you managed. Oh, I'm doing okay. So it's not technically a draft. We're just kind of pulling our top five picks and trying to make the ultimate playlist, right? So I am, though, coming at you. Okay. I'm going to come after you because that was a great pull. Okay. And the only thing I could think of to counter would have been this. But not for me. Live at the Pershing, the sound of the drums. Speaker 2 (8:55) Perfection, except for the tuning of the piano. Speaker 1 (8:58) Even that, I'll take. Speaker 2 (9:00) Oh, I love this line. Man, why is this such a, this is such an iconic arrangement and Speaker 1 (9:10) track. It's so simple. Can I tell you why? Maybe that's Speaker 3 (9:13) what Speaker 1 (9:13) makes it so cool. And why Ahmad Jamal is the greatest? Why? He's never 10 seconds away from the melody. Whether he's playing the melody or during his solos. Or even when he's not Speaker 2 (9:23) playing anything. You can Speaker 1 (9:24) tell. Listen to his solo. He's never 10 seconds away from letting you know where the melody is. It's such a lesson for any musician. Speaker 2 (9:32) And when he commits to a melody, he commits. He doesn't pull back. And then that counter melody that the bass line is... Speaker 2 (9:48) Almost no calming in the left hand. Melody. Quoting the melody. Oh, I love this block chords here. Chromatic. Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:14) Hey, do you miss the melody? Because there it is. There it is. It Speaker 2 (10:23) rears its beautiful head. Man, there's such a dramatic presence to when he's playing and when he's leaving space. Speaker 1 (10:34) Oh, Speaker 2 (10:54) that's what? Hey, Speaker 1 (11:04) do you miss the melody? Speaker 2 (11:04) This is the most finely crafted... Speaker 2 (11:11) Jazz panel trio playing ever. 100%. This is what we were Speaker 1 (11:15) saying on our trio showdown the other week. Not King Cole. I already planted my flag in a Majamal's trio. Certainly for craft. Arrangement. The Speaker 2 (11:27) ending. This is one of the simplest, most beautiful endings. Speaker 1 (11:50) Okay. You know, you don't have to have an out chorus of the melody if you've been playing the melody the whole time. You know what I'm saying? It's crazy that this is Speaker 2 (11:57) a live, this is live the Persian chorus, 1958, Chicago, Illinois. What's really incredible about this is we always have a great opportunity with live recordings. You hear people like you're in the club. It's, you know, 19, it's the 50s. Yeah. Chicago. Al Capone's coming in with a top. No, that's stereotyping, right? No, he did used to be at Speaker 3 (12:18) the Speaker 2 (12:18) Green Mill a lot. That's true. Speaker 3 (12:19) We Speaker 2 (12:19) typically associate the greatest live recordings as being really free-spirited, you know, extended solos. You know what's going to happen? The crowd's roaring. And this crowd is very present. Like, it's a sort of chattery. You can hear them talking. Yeah. There's stuff going on. Like, there's a constant. It's not like this silent thing. But the way that they're playing, and look, we can talk about it because I heard Ahmad play numerous times, obviously later on in his career, live. But the way they're playing on this is like everything has been predetermined. Speaker 3 (12:53) And Speaker 2 (12:53) I don't mean in a stale way, but they're doing a live gig where people are hyped up. You can feel the energy. It's palpable. Speaker 3 (12:59) But Speaker 2 (12:59) they're playing with a precision in craft that shouldn't work in a live situation. You'd be like, oh, that's boring. But it's just like, I mean, and it wasn't written out. He's, a lot of the stuff that Ahmad and the whole band, there were certain cues and triggers and like things, they were always done. But like a lot of the stuff that sounds like, oh, that must have been composed because it's so perfect, wasn't. That was actually improvised. You can hear the different versions of the tunes. But he had that combination between improv, planned, spontaneous arrangements and cues that he would have. But this is a tight, I mean,