If jazz likes to qualify certain musicians as legends, the pianist’s long and immense career justifies it, especially when listening to samples borrowed from his work, in particular by hip-hop artists. Anthology.
The “prophet” is gone. Jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal has died aged 92. A prolific musician, driven by a career spanning almost 70 years, Ahmad Jamal has single-handedly crossed half of the history of jazz. Often going against the tide of musical fashions and currents of which jazz has the secret, the one who learned to play the piano far from classical music theory has inspired dozens of artists, including the greatest jazzmen, Miles Davis in the lead, who never did not hide his admiration, something rather rare in the trumpeter, “All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal“.
>> Why the pianist Ahmad Jamal who died on April 16 is a jazz legend
If jazzmen pay homage to each other by reinterpreting pieces of music, then before “standards”, hip-hop pushes the exercise further, with samples, these fragments of music, forming loops, remodeled. With his particular airy style, Ahmad Jamal hit the mark with producers, and not just once: if legend has it that he is one of the most sampled artists, we can however identify just under 300 borrowings drawn over the course of Jamal’s work, according to the reference site on the subject, WhoSampled.
Some of these excerpts have become cult for music lovers, such as the very light sample of I Love Musicon the album The Awakening by the pianist, released in 1970: these few notes at the end of the piece, looped by producer Pete Rock, offer one of the “classics” of New York rapper Nas, The World is Yours.
The American rapper – son of jazz musician Olu Dara – will also use other excerpts from Ahmad Jamal’s discography. And he’s far from the only one: De La Soul has borrowed some Swahililand (on the album Jamal Plays Jamal of 1974) for his success Stakes is High from 1996.
Common and Kanye West will use, for their part, Ghetto Child from the album Jamalca (1974) for the hit They Say, released in 2005.
Cinema and covers
Pioneer, Ahmad Jamal has never stopped reinventing himself. For example, he signed the main theme for the film MASH, huge success at the cinema in 1970 – which will then be sampled by rapper Fabolous, in 2012. Moreover, the native of Pittsburgh preferred the term “classical American music” to that of jazz. And the musician to slip, in the New York Times end of 2022: “I’m always evolving, every time I sit at the piano, I always have new ideas“.
Jamal’s influence goes well beyond the borders of US rap: France has also been able to draw on his dexterity. It can thus be noted that Sexion d’Assaut used the Theme Bahamas (Jamalca) for the title Sorryreleased in 2010.
And as if to come full circle, Ahmad Jamal the “sampled” has also paid tribute to other musicians, throughout his career, with jazz covers, such as nature boyNat King Cole, one of his models or even Waltz for Debbie by Bill Evans. Ahmad Jamal has also chosen to replay certain world-famous hits in his own way, such as this Superstition borrowed from Stevie Wonder.