Ahmad Jamal, the influential jazz pianist, composer, and band leader, has died at the age of 92. He was known for his unique musical style and served as a source of inspiration for generations of jazz musicians like Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarret and the trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis.
It was reported by the New York Times that he died on Sunday at his home in Ashley Falls, Mass, the cause being prostate cancer, said his daughter Sumayah Jamal.
From the age of 14, Jamal embarked on his professional music career by creating a unique sound that leaped over genre boundaries. Minimalism, classical, modernism, pop: Ahmad was sometimes likened to Thelonious Monk in terms of his ability to innovate and influence other musicians, later being sampled by the likes of De La Soul, Jay-Z, Common, and Nas.
The trumpeter Miles Davis once said: “All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal,” writing in his memoir that his friend has “knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, and the way he phrases notes and chords and passages.”
Mr. Jamal made a lasting effect on jazz in his career, which later brought him a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award, a lifetime achievement Grammy and induction into France’s Order of Arts and Letters. His musical approach, named “the spaces in the music,” stood as a contrast to the challengingly complex music known as bebop, which was sweeping the jazz world when Mr. Jamal began his career as a teenager in the mid-1940s. Mr. Jamal decided to take an entirely different path with his laid-back, accessible style, with its dense chords, its wide dynamic range, and above all, its judicious use of silence. This soon later became an integral part of the jazz landscape.
While Jamal performed jazz, he called it “American classical music,” performing in the house band for Chicago’s Pershing Hotel lounge- a Black-owned favorite of the likes of Sammy Davis Jr and Billie Holiday. In 1958, he recorded his breakthrough album, “Perishing: But Not For Me,” which sold 1 million copies and remained on the Billboard magazine charts for more than 100 weeks. This made Jamal a household name when rock’n’roll was on the up, and jazz was beginning to wane. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Jamal continued to perform relentlessly and released several live albums, shoring up his reputation as one of the best living jazz performers.
