American jazz pianist and composer Ahmad Jamal died Sunday at his home in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts, at the age of 92 from prostate cancer.
Over the course of an eight-decade career, Jamal, who began his formal piano studies at age 7, won several awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jazz composer Miles Davis, trumpeter and bandleader, said how the pianist influenced him when he declared: »All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal,» reports The New York Times.
BIOGRAPHY OF THE PIANIST Jamal was born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh in July 1930. At the age of three he began to play the piano and, four years later, he began his formal studies. Upon joining the musicians’ union at age 14, pianist Art Tatum praised him as having »a great future».
In the early to mid-1950s, he led several trios and quartets until he settled into a trio with bassist Israel Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier, who released ‘At The Pershing: But Not For Me’, which is one of the most popular and influential recordings in jazz history.
Later, in the late 1960s, he recorded ‘The Awakening’, which was widely acclaimed for its originality by jazz standards.
He has also composed music for several film soundtracks and founded several record labels. He released up to three albums a year in the late 1960s and early 1970s, recording more than 60 in his career.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
