When I was about 18 or 19, my friend Dean Schneider, a wonderful piano player and already accomplished out to there, hipped me to The Ahmad Jamal Trio's But Not For Me: Live At The Pershing, and I was as revolutionized as a generation of players (then) 25 years before me had been, as much as I had been by Bill Evans. cut one, side two -- "Poinciana". It was like having a scud drop in the front yard.
This was Jamal's second trio under his leadership. The first was Jamal, bassist Israel Crosby, and guitarist Ray Crawford, replaced within a few years by drummer Vernell Fournier.
Israel Crosby was the oldest member of the band, born in 1919. he took arguably the first recorded bass solo, in 1935, on "Blues For Israel" by Gene Krupa, predating Jimmy Blanton, whose equal I think he was.
In the forties, the modern piano trio really came to full bloom, between Errol Garner and Bud Powell. I might get in trouble for saying this, but the notion of interactive trio playing didn't come into it under those pianists, great as they were (and they were).
In 1957, New Orleans drummer Vernell Fournier replaced the guitarist Ray Crawford, and a quiet and beautiful revolution took place. Jamal's use of rhythmic density, space, comedy, drama, and singable lines (so singable that they belied his astonishing technique) presented a truly viable alternative to Powell and Silver's hard bop and Shearing's overly-arranged quintet.
Instead, here was a trio that breathed, mixing very arranged stuff with very free improvising where Crosby's bass and Fournier's drums gave a depth of character to the group unlike any small jazz group had realized before. The could turn the folk song "Billy Boy" into a tour de force.
(Miles' literally covered it, too. Look close at Miles' repetiore, and it becomes very clear that he had a lot of love for Jamal. He was vocal about it throughout his life, too.)
Jamal would have other trios after this trio, mostly this good, too. The next major one, with Jamil Nasser and Frank Gant kept Jamal at the forefront of the trio art. In the 1980s, he took bassist James Cammack under his wing and the fruits of his art are still flowering, even as Jamal turned 80 this year. He is a fantastic creative wellspring even now, still powerful.
This is the 1959 Jamal/Crosby/Fournier version of the trio, and it truly shows their greatness. They weren't filmed much -- I get the sense they mostly stayed home in Chicago during this period -- and we're lucky to have the two songs I've found. But there's no unrewarding footage of Jamal. I saw him play at least five times in 1985-86, and he was as invigorating during that period as he is in this clip. He still is.
A master.
