THE DEFINITIVE RECORDINGS OF THE SEMINAL AHMAD JAMAL TRIOS!!
RBSProds | Deep in the heart of Texas | 03/27/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Five HUGE Stars!! Two of jazz' GREATEST trios on two CDs starring one of jazz' hippest virtuoso pianists, Ahmad Jamal. Well over 2 and a half swinging hours of pure jazz excellence that has stood the test of time. First the great news, "Count'em 88", the first piano/bass/drum Jamal trio recording, is back and it is just as good as this reviewer remembers what amounted to my very first jazz recording. Then there are the Okeh, Epic, and Cadet/Chess recordings of the piano/guitar/bass trio featuring super guitarist Ray Crawford as soloist, 'bongoist', and superb accompanist. Jazz piano giant Ahmad Jamal is MAGNIFICENT throughout, being one of those artists that was already operating at a high virtuosic level when he initially became famous and attracted the intense interest of Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane, and Randy Weston for his compositions, musical arrangements, groundbreaking extended vamps, and his fantastic pianism.
Let's jump to track 12, disc 2, the beginning of "Count'em 88 {keys}". Jamal had switched formats and added a drummer, the excellent Walter Perkins. As a one-time classical pianist, I had played the "Volga Boatman" theme many times, but to me Jamal's jazz version is hip, unique, and mindbending, creating tension and release. Note Perkins' using his tom-toms to allude to Ray Crawford's 'guitar bongo' technique from the previous trio. "Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year", "On Green Dolphin Street", and "Beat One Out" are other wonderful renderings, just overflowing with hipness. But the superb, smokey, and haunting "Maryam" was the first jazz ballad I had heard and is still one of the most towering ballad performances I have heard, with Jamal conjuring up beautiful phrases and rhapsodic runs in front of Perkins' wonderful brushwork and Crosby's rock solid bass underpining. Just a marvelous, masterful late night-type performance.
Elsewhere, we find an early vestige of the groundbreaking hit "Poinciana" and we see why no less than Miles Davis himself was mesmerized and influenced enough to record some of the same Jamal songs and, indeed, to imitate the Jamal solo style at times with his trumpet. No? Listen to "Autumn Leaves" here and then go to Cannonball's album "Something Else" and listen to that approximation version, with Hank Jones and Miles Davis BOTH in the role of Mr Jamal. Or listen to the Davis quintet with Red Garland sometimes in the role of Mr Jamal. Or listen to "Love For Sale", "Surrey With the Fringe On Top", "Billy Boy", or many others. And Miles readily admitted Jamal's heavy influence on his playing style, arrangements, and song selection. Even when Miles got away from Jamal-type pianists with Wynton Kelley, Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock, he was still using the Jamal "pedal points", but they were now calling them "modes" to enable extended solos. Then John Coltrane got ahold of them and the rest is 'free jazz' history. (Also if you listen Ray Crawford's 1st solo on track #20 "Pavanne" you will hear a rough approximation of "Impressions" including the modulation shift but without the bridge. However, we'll never know who was listening to whom in 1955).
The Okeh label sessions go back to 1951 but suffer no time lag, they are as timeless and current as anything piayed today in modern jazz. Ahmad Jamal was READY when he made his appearance as a performing artist. And super guitarist Ray Crawford is a true star in solos, comping, and imitating a wild bongo with his pizzacato plucking, spinning dazzling lines over and over. From "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" to "Gal in Calico", there are terrific solo performances. "Ari and Ukthay" is fantastic but I wonder how many people skipped that track based on the title alone. The 1955 EPIC label sessions continue the excellent performances and some amazing trio interplay between Jamal, Crawford, and his really disciplined bassists, Israel Crosby and Eddie Calhoun (soon to join Errol Garner in his amazing trios). Pieces D'Resistance, the best of the best, include the endless vamp of "Squeeze Me"; the nonpariel Jamal ballad style shown in "Crazy He Calls Me"; the forward looking "Poinciana"; Miles Davis favorites "Love For Sale" and "Autumn Leaves"; the amazing interplay of "Rica Pulca", and "Perfidia" among many other DIAMOND PERFORMANCES. On "The Donkey Serenade", Jamal plays one note over 100 times in succession and makes it work in context. Amazing!
"Love For Sale" (track 11, disc 1) deserves special consideration. It is simply one of the finest trio performances in Jazz History and one of the premier piano solos of this song ever. Jamal deconstructs and re-constructs this song in every way imaginable, all over a driving drumless latin beat that Jamal and Crawford must sustain while driving the song forward. From gentle nuance to thundering two-handed cresendos, in over 8 minutes, Jamal covers the piano from end to end, getting into the extreme notes on either end of the piano that most pianists avoid, and making it an AWESOME experience of shifting dynamics. And Ray Crawford plays a killer solo as well. This is a wonderful compilation of Jamal trio excellence, an essential recording, and it gets: My Highest Recommendation. Five HUGE Stars.
(Recently I called for the CD release of "Count'em 88" and it happened. Now I am requesting CD releases of Ahmad Jamal's excellent "Heat Wave" and "Tranquility". If you please!!)"
Track Listings (20) - Disc #1