Pianist Ahmad Jamal charted a new popularity for jazz
text Eugene Holley Jr.
In 1958, a small, dignified, Pittsburgh-born pianist, com-
poser, and bandleader named Ahmad Jamal recorded a
show tune entitled “Poinciana” at a hip, Black-owned ven-
ue called the Pershing Lounge in Chicago’s South Side. His
elegant, Errol Garner–style pianisms, buoyed by drummer
Vernel Fournier’s second-line syncopations and the rich,
rock-steady bass lines of ex–Benny Goodman sideman Is-
rael Crosby, transformed that song into something rare for
the jazz world—a hit record. With the release of “Poinci-
ana” as a single, and on the million-selling LP, Ahmad Jamal
Trio at the Pershing: But Not for Me, Jamal emerged as major
force in jazz, or as he prefers to call it, “American classical
music,” and has been so for five decades.
Jamal is a true scientist of sound: his use of space and
dynamics, along with his tight, intricate arrangements,
were a big influence on generations of pianists from Ram-
sey Lewis to Jacky Terrasson. In his autobiography, Miles
Davis declared that Jamal “knocked me out with his con-
cept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement,
and the way he phrases notes and chords and passages.”1
Davis was so enamored by Jamal’s conceptions that he re-
corded various compositions from the pianist’s repertoire,
including “A Gal in Calico” and “Surrey with the Fringe
on Top.” Davis and arranger Gil Evans even transcribed
Jamal’s “New Rhumba,” a track from his 1955 LP Cham-
ber Music of the New Jazz, note for note on their big band
album, Miles Ahead.
Born on July 2, 1930, Jamal started playing piano at
96 Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.
the age of three. He was heavily schooled in the European
and American classics, and was working professionally at
the age of fourteen when the jazz piano giant Art Tatum
declared him “a coming great.”2 He left home with band-
leader George Hudson after graduating from Westinghouse
High School in 1948, and has recorded and performed in
a myriad of settings, ranging from big band, choral, sym-
phonic, to small ensembles, executing a number of styles,
from straightahead and Latin to fusion and funk. He re-
leased over seventy records, and several of his songs have
been sampled on hip-hop tracks: “Swahililand” (“Stakes
Is High,” J Dilla and De La Soul), “Pastures” (“Feelin’ It,”
Jay-Z), “I Love Music,” (“The World Is Yours,” Nas), and
“Poinciana” (“Stop Frontin’,” KRS-One).
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Jamal’s release
of “Poinciana.” In this interview, conducted by phone in
Paris, and from his home in Connecticut, Jamal unveils the
story behind “Poinciana,” his early struggles in Chicago, and
how his artistry lives on in the twenty-first century.
What brought you to Chicago in the early ’50s?
I came to Chicago in 1948 because of my girlfriend at
the time. I couldn’t work because there was a [union] re-
striction. I could work, but only at a different place every
night, because there was a six-month period when you go
from one union to the other. I was caught doing a job I
wasn’t supposed to be on, and I was told, “I don’t think
you’ll ever get in this union as long as I’m president,” by
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Harry Gray. [laughs]
How did you straighten it out?
Well, it was straightened out because the musicians started
wanting me to work with them. I don’t remember the name
right now, [but] there was a great tenor saxophone player.
He said, “I want to have this man on a regular basis in my
band.” So Harry Gray relented, and I became a member of
the union. And later on, he helped me buy my first house!
He helped me get a loan from the credit union. So man
cannot play God, Mr. Holley!
What else did you do to make ends meet?
I got me a job making kitchen cabinets for eighty cents an
hour. That’s one of the ways I survived. I was [also] playing
[solo]. I was working all over the place with various groups.
Then I got a job as a maintenance man on the sixteenth
floor of the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building
for thirty dollars a week, cleaning up the busiest revolving
doors in the world—cleaning up the snow at Monroe and
State Street. I worked Jimmy’s Palm Garden [solo]. Ike Da-
vis, the legendary drummer, used to come in and sit in with
me. And Nevin Wilson, a bassist that I liked very much,
came and sat in with me.
It was during this period that you met two musi-
cians who would change your life: Vernel Fournier
and Israel Crosby.
Vernel was from New Orleans, one of the great musical
towns in the world, like my town, Pittsburgh. He had that
wonderful New Orleans [Creole] mixture, which speaks
to this ridiculous concept of ethnicity that we have. They
say “races.” There’s no such thing as “races.” There’s only
one race—the human race. And one of the proofs is the
wonderful, wonderful mixture you have, complexion-wise,
coming out of New Orleans. I was Israel’s pianist at Jack’s
Back Door: a marvelous guy, a wonderful musician, and he
had a wonderful sense of humor. He liked my work—like a
lot of people did—and, thank God, they did, because that’s
how I survived. He hired me as his pianist, and I stayed
at Jack’s Back Door with him and [saxophonist] Johnny
Thompson for I don’t know how long.
Isn’t it true that you started working at the Persh-
ing as far back as 1952?
I was able to get in there one night. They didn’t want to hire
me. But I begged [manager] Sonny Boswell to let me work
there. I think he paid me fifty-one, fifty-two dollars for one
night [laughs]. But I had to go to Harry’s Show Lounge. I
was working in the back room there. And then I ran into
Miller Brown and Grant Smith, who bought the Pershing,
and they gladly hired me. But that was after I left New York
and decided to come back to Chicago.
The record producer/impresario John Hammond
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signed you to the Okeh label around 1951 and
brought you to New York for an ill-fated Manhattan
engagement at the Embers.
The Embers was a noisy club. You’re an intermission group;
you’re not the headliner. People are not paying you any
attention. They want requests, and some drunken bum
comes up and spills a drink on the piano keys, and his red
wine is flowing all over the white keys. So that was it for
me. I jumped up, got in my car with Israel Crosby, and we
drove all the way back to Chicago.
So you come back to Chicago from New York for
an extended period at the Pershing. What was the
club like?
It was located on Sixty-fourth and Cottage Grove Avenue.
And it drew everyone from Lena Horne and Billie Holiday,
with her Chihuahua dog, to Sammy Davis Jr.—he was in
the Pershing the night before he lost his eye in Las Vegas in
that car accident. Everyone came to the Pershing.
The classic Ahmad Jamal sound emerged during
your long association at the Pershing. What were
your musical influences during that crucial period
of your development?
I had my Pittsburgh influences. I grew up with all sorts Live at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, circa 1976. Photography by Leni Sinclair.
of orchestras playing in venues all around the surround-
ing area. I worked with [pianist/saxophonist] Carl Arter, ful man and an exponent of Liszt. with [engineer] Mal Chisholm—one of the spectacular,
one of the prominent musicians around Pittsburgh, and So now you’ve established the Jamal sound. But great engineers at that time—and that was it. Four nights
Joe Westray hired me. He was one the more successful before you recorded your monumental record with and forty-three tracks later, here comes At the Pershing!
bandleaders. I was playing at ten years old with people like Crosby and Fournier, you were part of an influen- What about disc jockey, Soul Train producer, and
Honeyboy Minor, a legendary drummer who had all of the tial, drumless trio called the Three Strings with gui- voice-over artist Sid McCoy?
best jobs. My aunt sent me a lot of music from Wilson, tarist Ray Crawford. Sid McCoy was instrumental in encouraging that session.
North Carolina. So I had a vast repertoire. When I was The group was a carryover from the Four Strings with He was very prominent in Chicago. He had one of the very,
eleven years old, I could play with guys sixty years old. I was violinist Joe Kennedy. I joined his group. And after he de- very important shows in Chicago. Great speaking voice—
making more money in the eleventh grade than my father cided to go back home [to Pittsburgh], it became the Three he had a manner about him and was a nice man.
was making in the steel mill! Strings: Ray Crawford, [bassist] Tommy Sewell, and myself. I want you to set the record straight: in Len Lyons’s
So you were a child prodigy. So we had string instruments only. Ray Crawford started book, The Great Jazz Pianists, which also features
Well, whatever you want to call it. I studied Art Tatum, playing the percussive effects on the frets of his guitar. And you, Sun Ra claims that he worked downstairs in
Bach, Beethoven, Count Basie, John Kirby, and Nat Cole. everyone adopted that, [including] Oscar Peterson’s group, the Pershing when you were there and implied that
I was studying Liszt. I had to know European and Ameri- with [guitarists] Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis. Many, many you were influenced by some of his concepts.
can classical music. My mother was rich in spirit, and she people emulated Ray Crawford. He was replaced, because He had nothing do with my career. I had nothing to do
led me to another rich person: my teacher, Mary Cardwell he stayed in New York when it didn’t happen [for me] in with his. Nothing! We never worked together, and never so-
Dawson, who started the first and only Afro-American the Embers. He didn’t come back to Chicago, and that’s cialized, and never interacted musically. He was on another
opera company in the country. That’s were I met violinist why I added drums. planet. And I was another level!
Joe Kennedy, one of the great masters of all time. She put Talk about some of the people who helped make At When did you first hear “Poinciana”?
Afro-Americans in the Metropolitan Opera. And she sur- the Pershing in 1958, starting with Leonard Chess. I was introduced to “Poinciana” by way of Joe Kennedy [in
rounded herself with all ethnicities. She worked out of the Who decided that it was a good idea to record the late ’40s]. That song was a part of his repertoire [with
New England Conservatory of Music. She was a unique there? the Four Strings]. Joe Kennedy was a master at composi-
person: always dressed to the max. You could hear her heels I decided! I told Leonard I want to do a recording on loca- tion, a master at playing the violin, a master of orchestra-
coming down that stairway. If you didn’t have your lessons tion at the Pershing. Leonard was always cooperative when tion, and so many things. So he introduced me to a differ-
ready, you were in trouble. [laughs] She was wonderful. And it came to whatever I wanted to do musically; he never inter- ent type of repertoire.
I went to another teacher, [pianist] James Miller: a wonder- fered, so he said okay. He sent a two-track machine out there Your first recording of “Poinciana” was made in
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 1955 and reissued on The Legendary Okeh and
Epic Recordings.
We did the [LP] version with Ray Crawford, Israel, and
myself. It was one of my favorite recordings—gorgeous! It
was so pure and so elegant and great to listen to.
The song, by Buddy Bernier and Nat Simon, was
originally from a Broadway show.
Yes, I don’t know too much about “Song of the Tree,” better
known as “Poinciana.” It was a hit, of course, but we revived
it. I don’t think anything was ever as big as “Poinciana” was
on 628 [the original label number of Ahmad Jamal Trio Live
at the Pershing] turned out to be. And so many people tried
to cover that and tried to emulate that. When we developed
“Poinciana,” we developed it chorus after chorus, until it got
to the point where I said, “We got to record this.”
The biggest change from the epic, drumless trio
rendition of “Poinciana” to the Pershing version
was, of course, Vernel Fournier. Talk about how he
anchored you and Mr. Crosby and created the “Poin-
ciana” that made you into an international star.
It was a combination of things: Israel Crosby’s lines, what I
was playing, and Vernel—if you listen to his work on “Poin-
ciana,” you’d think it was two drummers! [laughs] He was so
multidimensional: a master of brushes, master of content,
master of metronomic time, and feeling. All of those ele-
ments from all three of us made that recording. [The song]
was seven minutes and some seconds long. There are five
different choruses, and each chorus is an entity into itself:
a statement that builds and builds and builds. Each chorus
became a stepping-stone to something higher. And when
we got to the fourth chorus, [laughs] that was it! We had a
hit on our hands!
The album stayed on the Cash Box and Billboard
charts for 108 weeks. How did it change your life?
You mean, how is it still changing? [laughs] It’s still chang-
ing, Eugene! It never stopped because of that. I’m sitting on
the phone with you, talking from Paris, and you’re in Dela-
ware, so I’m all over the place because of that record.
Yes, but at least financially your life changed?
Well, life has many challenges than it did before. Success
has to be measured on all levels. And if you’re not content,
you’re not successful. Just because you got fame and money
coming in, [it] doesn’t make you successful. The successful
person has peace of mind. And if you don’t have peace of
mind, the money can be a very difficult thing to handle, let
me put it that way.
Was it difficult for you at first?
It’s difficult for all Afro-Americans who have ever been ex-
posed to financial gain. Look at Joe Louis; what happened
to him? He was very successful, wasn’t he? He worked for
100 Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.
the government and ended up owing the government taxes.
And I don’t know if they relented or what—the rumor is
that Frank Sinatra bailed him out. Maybe I’m just talking
nonsense. But Joe Louis had all kinds of people come along
and tell him to invest in this, and invest in that. So most of
us in the Afro-American community weren’t educated as to
the whys and wherefores of how to handle money, and, in
many instances, that’s still true.
After At the Pershing, you did something that most
Black people at that time didn’t do: in 1959, you
went to Egypt and the Sudan. There was a New
York Times report of your trip.
Oh, I’ve been planning the trip since I was eleven years old.
I always had some great, philosophical dreams of going to
Africa, because I knew that’s the background of our folks
here in the United States. So I was planning this way before
the Pershing [LP]. What the Pershing did was implement
that [trip].
Who told you about Africa at eleven years old?
That’s extraordinary.
I was always thinking. I was always an introvert—always
a loner and a thinker at that time, and music made me
more introspective. And I thought of faraway places. My
faraway dream was to go to Africa, and I accomplished that
by way of my recording. I broke Count Basie’s record at the
Blue Note in Chicago. Frank Holzfeind was going under,
and I saved his club. Frank gave me an extra five hundred
dollars to enjoy my trip to [Africa], and there I went. The
ex-minister of the interior of the Sudan hosted me, and Dr.
Mahmoud Shawarbi was my host in Egypt. I didn’t play a
note, and that what was so surprising to the New York Times
reporter, because I didn’t go there to play piano. I spoke at
Al-Azhar, the oldest university in the world.
Another benefit of your “Poinciana” success was
your own South Side restaurant, the Alhambra,
which opened for a few months in 1961.
The Alhambra was a very nightmarish venture, encouraged
by a lot of people around me. It was conceived as a place for
me to work whenever I wanted to. But it didn’t work out
that way. And I hired the wonderful bass player, Ahmed
Abdul-Malik in my absence. I had forty-three employees. I
didn’t need a restaurant. Who needs a restaurant if you’re a
musician? So I left Chicago, moved to New York, and have
been here ever since.
Here’s another attempt to set the record straight. Your
club did not serve alcohol, and there were rumors that
you were forced to close the club by gangsters.
Oh no, no, nothing like that at all. That’s what people want
to hear. But I had no constraints. To the contrary, I was
more dictatorial than anyone else. I closed it myself, be-
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cause I didn’t need a restaurant. And the headache that goes
with the restaurant. I had a big house at 4900 Greenwood
that time—sixteen rooms, six baths. I didn’t need that ei-
ther. The only major, major conflict at that time was my
divorce, so I moved to New York.
After you moved to New York, you thought about
retiring to study at Julliard. But you eventually
formed a new trio with drummer Frank Gant and
bassist Jamil Nasser.
Before I put that trio together, I had Papa Joe Jones, who
used to be with the legendary Count Basie, and a bassist
from my hometown, Wyatt Ruther, with me at the Embers.
That was the first job I took, coming out of semiretirement.
Jamil and Gant had a reputation long before they joined
me, so I hired them based on their backgrounds as great
musicians. They stayed with me for ten years.
At various stages of your career, you’ve specifi-
cally hired drummers from New Orleans.
I had four drummers from Louisiana: Vernel Fournier,
Idris Muhammad, Herlin Riley, and James Johnson, from
Shreveport, by way of Pittsburgh. Idris is one of the great,
great legends out of New Orleans, drumwise. He’s really a
sensational musician, and he has more [stuff] on the Inter-
net than I do!
I want to talk about something I’ve seen every time
you play live. Please decode for me your mysteri-
ous hand signals.
I’m conducting. [laughs] My finger pointed to the top
means I’m going to the top of the composition. When I
cross my wrist, that means either I’m going to the bridge, or
I’m going to cut the time. And sometimes I do verbal cues.
I don’t always confine myself to hand signals.
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You recorded some great LPs in the ’60s and ’70s
with your new trio: Extensions, The Awakening, and
one of my all-time favorites, Outertimeinnerspace.
I knew you were going to mention that. That was done in
Montreux. The interesting thing about that [LP] was that
the Fender Rhodes was broken; it was only working on one EarCaveWaxPoeticsAd:Layout 1 10/14/08 4:52 PM Pag
side of the speakers. So it’s an interesting record, because
the Fender Rhodes was giving half of what it was supposed
to. [laughs] It was an “electronic malfunction.”
Fifty years after “Poinciana,” you still take songs,
put the Jamal touch on them, and make them your
own, like on your new CD, It’s Magic, a collection
of original compositions and selections from mo-
tion picture soundtracks.
It’s the strongest thing I’ve done since At the Pershing! Most
of the time, I’m not entirely pleased with everything. But
this is a special, special gift from the Creator. It was pro-
duced with the same formula I used for 628. I used the same
editing formula. I recorded for four days in Strasbourg, and
I only chose nine tracks. So, history repeats itself! .
Eugene Holley Jr. is a Delaware-based journalist. His
work has appeared in many publications, including
Down Beat, JazzTimes, Hispanic, The New York Times
Book Review, Philadelphia Weekly, Vibe, and The Village
Voice.
Notes
1. Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe, Miles, the Autobiography (Touchstone/
Simon & Schuster, 1990) 178.
2. Eugene Holley Jr., “Ahmad Jamal: A Lasting Impression,” American Vi-
sions, (October/November 1994) 47.