Jamal’s daughter, Sumayah Jamal, confirmed the icon died Sunday afternoon (April 16) in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts after losing a battle with prostate cancer. Jamal was 92.
Jamal’s music most notably impacted East St. Louis native and fellow jazz legend Miles Davis. Davis talked about Jamal’s influence on his unique sound in his 1989 autobiography, “Miles Ahead.”
“He knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement, and the way he phrases notes and chords and passages," Davis wrote.
Davis recorded Jamal’s “New Rhumba” on his 1975 album, “Miles Ahead.”
Jamal’s musical imprint left a lasting impression on other St. Louis and Metro East natives including pianist Ryan Marquez, saxophonist Scooter Brown, Jazz vocalist Denise Thimes, and Jazz St. Louis President and CEO, Victor Goines.
Marquez saw Jamal perform at Jazz St. Louis after a Webster University professor recommended that he and his classmates attend.
“That experience was amazing,” Marquez said.
“It was an amazing experience to see somebody with such mastery be totally in their bliss. The way he played with space, he was a minimalist and captivated the audience by being intentional with what he was saying and playing the right notes.”
Marquez called Jamal, a forefather of modern and contemporary jazz.
“It's a sad day knowing he’s passed on,” Marquez said.
“But the amazing and beautiful thing about music is its transcendental and has the ability to permeate the spaces of the unknown which supersede the physical. His music will live on for as long as music lives on.”
Brown was introduced to Jamal through his father’s diverse record collection.
“Right off the bat my favorite record is “The Awakening,” Brown said.
“A reissued version dropped that I’ve been looking for on vinyl. I remember bumping “The Awakening” when I got my first job right out of college. I love his interpretation of “Dolphin Dance,” and I love the fact that he’s one of the most sampled jazz artists in hip-hop.”
Jamal is sampled on “Stakes Is High,” by De La Soul, “I Gave You Power,” by Nas, “Feelin’ It,” by Jay Z, “Be Your Girl” by Teedra Moses and many other songs.
Brown has even sampled Jamal in his own music. He specifically sampled “The Awakening,” on “Snoopy’s Interlude,” a song dedicated to his father who grew up with the childhood nickname Snoopy.
“Shoutout to Ahmad Jamal his classical approach and jazz influence is a huge loss in the jazz world and in the hip hop world,” Brown said.
Thimes, like Brown and Marquez, was introduced to Jamal’s music at a young age. With her late father Lou “Fatha” Thimes being a prominent DJ and announcer in St. Louis, she was exposed to a lot of music, especially jazz.
She fell in love with Jamal’s song “Poinciana (The Song of the Tree),” at an early age.
“At this point in my life his music has meant a lot to me because he’s one of our jazz pioneers,” Thimes said. ‘There’s not too many jazz greats that have lasted as long as he did and continue to spread the music as well as the importance of this music in the fabric of our communities and our nation.”
Thimes met Jamal years ago at Jazz St. Louis ahead before a performance. She saw him walking upstairs toward the Green Room, stopped and thanked him for his contributions to jazz music. She then sang for him.
“I said thank you so much for who you are and what you bring to this music,” Thimes said. “He smiled at me with those beautiful white teeth and said ‘you are welcome.’ I introduced myself. I told him I was a rising jazz singer and I gave him my CD and he thanked me.”
“I sang for him right there while I was standing in front of the women’s restroom. I started singing a little bit of “Tenderly” and he said, ‘Aww yeah, you hang in there and you stay the course’ and I said I’m gonna do my best.”
Thimes saw Jamal perform at a private event David and Thelma Steward hosted at The Sheldon Concert Hall & Art Galleries.
“When I saw him that time, all I could do was sink myself in my seat and there were times I didn’t even applaud,” she said.
“I didn’t want to do anything to break the moment of me seeing this wonderful man. I’m grateful for that moment to have embraced him one more time.”
Goines had the opportunity to work with Jamal at Jazz At Lincoln Center. He said it was a pleasure.
“He was a master of form and dynamics,” Goines said.
“He knew how to work the band. His band wasn’t based upon form being fixed like most songs in the jazz industry. He would have some people play in a certain form and he would give them a cue to move on and after they would move on he would give them another cue to move to another section.”
Goines called Jamal “a man of great dignity and humanity who was a champion for jazz and represented royalty.”
Jamal was born Frederick Jones on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and acknowledged his birthplace as the contribution to his growth. Jamal’s father was an open-hearth worker in the steel mills, while his uncle Lawrence was a pianist. Jamal learned how to play piano at three years old from copying what he heard Lawrence play.
Lessons began at seven. Early on, he sought influences from his music teacher Mary Cardwell Dawson (founder of the National Negro Opera Company), and his aunt Louise, who gifted him with sheet music of popular songs. His jazz influences included Nat King Cole, Erroll Garner, and more.
He toured with former Westinghouse High School student George Hudson’s Count Basie-influenced orchestra at 17, joined a song-and-dance team, and penned one of his most common themes, Ahmad’s Blues at 18. He converted to Islam two years later and adopted the name Ahmad Jamal.
He joined the group The Four Strings which later became The Three Strings when the violinist left the group, and caught the attention of talent producer John Hammond, who signed the group to Columbia’s Okeh label. Chicago bassist Israel Crosby joined the group in 1955.
His group became the house band for Pershing Hotel in Chicago, and one night in January 1958 they recorded more than 40 songs, including one of their biggest hits, Latin groove, “Poinciana.”
Poinciana, a Latin groove taken from the 1952 Dreamboat movie. Eight songs from that evening including “Poinciana” are on the million-selling album, “At The Pershing: But Not For Me.” He also recorded “Suicide is Painless,” the theme song for the movie M*A*S*H in 1970, recorded the albums “Jamalca” and “Intervals” in 1974 and 1979, respectively.
He leaves behind his daughter Sumayah from his second marriage and two grandchildren.
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