AUGUST 1 JAZZ FESTIVAL I - AHMAD JAMAL
Friday, 8:00pm - Spanish Courtyard
Courtyard and General Admission tickets Sold Out!
Ahmad Jamal, piano; James Cammack, bass;
James Johnson, drums; Manolo Badrena, percussion
Jazz legends, young lions, and the rich traditions of Latin jazz came together in the 2008 Caramoor International Jazz Festival.
With a career reaching back over five decades, the legendary jazz pianist, Ahmad Jamal opened the 2008 International Jazz Festival. The innovative and delightfully surprising improvisations heard that evening in the intimate Spanish Courtyard showed why Ahmad Jamal is one of our greatest living jazz pianists.
Arguably the most prominent figure in jazz today, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader, Wynton Marsalis and his Septet headlined this year's Festival and made Saturday night swing. Elio Villafranca and Chuchito Valdes - two of today's most eminent Cuban pianists - began the day by squaring off in a Cuban musical summit. Wingspan brought together a powerful line up of some of today's most exciting players and served as a perfect vehicle for pianist and leader Mulgrew Miller's ever-evolving and highly personal style. The afternoon concluded with the foremost Brazilian duo - guitarist Ricardo Peixoto and vocalist Claudia Villela - in an exploration of 50 years of Bossa Nova.
On Sunday, the weekend concluded with the piano pyrotechnics of Dominican pianist and Westchester resident Michel Camilo. 81-year-old saxophonist, composer, band leader, and jazz legend, Jimmy Heath and his Big Band turn up the heat(h)! To start the afternoon, pianist Aaron Diehl, unleashed his brilliant technique and sensitive touch, showing why he is a new force on the jazz scene.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ahmad Jamal, piano ~ Celebrated pianist-composer Ahmad Jamal continues his performance schedule around the world, as he has for well over the last four decades. Noted for his outstanding technical command and identifiable sound as a piano stylist, Mr. Jamal was born on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A child prodigy who began to play the piano at the age of 3, he began formal studies at 7. While in high school, he completed the equivalent of college master classes under the noted African-American concert singer and teacher Mary Cardwell Dawson and pianist James Miller. He joined the musicians union at the age of 14, and he began touring upon graduation from Westinghouse High School at the age of 17, drawing critical acclaim for his solos. In 1951, he formed his first trio, The Three Strings. Performing at New York's The Embers club, Record Producer John Hammond "discovered" The Three Strings and signed them to Okeh Records (a division of Columbia, now Sony, Records).
In 1956, Mr. Jamal, who had already been joined by bassist Israel Crosby in 1955, replaced guitarist Ray Crawford with a drummer. Working as the "house trio" at Chicago's Pershing Hotel, in 1958, drummer Vernell Fournier joined this trio and Mr. Jamal made an on location recording for Argo (Chess) Records entitled But Not For Me. The resulting hit single and album, that also included Poinciana--his rendition, now Mr. Jamal's "trademark", remained on the Ten Best-selling charts -- amazingly for a jazz album -- an unprecedented 108 weeks! This financial success enabled Mr. Jamal to realize a dream, and he opened a restaurant/club, The Alhambra, in Chicago. Here the Trio was able to perform while limiting their touring schedule.
Considering his trio "an orchestra", Mr. Jamal not only achieves a unified sound, but subtly inserts independent roles for the bass and drums. The hallmarks of Mr. Jamal's style are rhythmic innovations, colorful harmonic perceptions, especially left hand harmonic and melodic figures, plus parallel and contrary motion lines in and out of chordal substitutions and alterations and pedal point ostinato interludes in tasteful dynamics. He also incorporates a unique sense of space in his music, and his musical concepts are exciting without being loud in volume. Augmented by a selection of unusual standards and his own compositions, Mr. Jamal would notably impress and influence, among others, trumpeter Miles Davis.
In 1951, Mr. Jamal first recorded Ahmad's Blues on Okeh Records. His arrangement of the folk tune Billy Boy, and Poinciana (not his original composition), also stem from this period. In 1955, he recorded his first Argo (Chess) Records album that included New Rhumba, Excerpts From The Blues, Medley (actually I Don't Want To Be Kissed), and It Ain't Necessarily So, -- all later utilized by Miles Davis and Gil Evans on the albums Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess.
