Night Life (1971)

Following from the last Night Life, we have another mention of Ahmad Jamal. This time it's a total slam: "Ahmad Jamal, of the flexible fingers and occasionally interesting ideas." Wow.

I'm not familiar with what Jamal was doing music-wise in October 1971, but I do own The Awakening, a record Jamal recorded in February 1970 for Impulse! Records with Jamil Nasser on bass and Frank Gant on drums. I've found Jamal's post-classic trio 1960s output to be less than amazing, but The Awakening is true to its title.

Jamal was always the controlling voice in the trio, so any bassist and drummer needed to find ways to make themselves heard. Israel Crosby did this through incredibly creative basslines that put the bass to the forefront in the trio setting as much as Scott LaFaro's work with Bill Evans (in a much more democratic trio) was doing in the same years; drummer Vernel Fournier made himself heard almost through negative sound, establishing himself as the master of deceptive simplicity at the drums, hitting a groove and holding it like a rhythmic pedal point.

The trio with Nasser and Gant took some time to really hit its stride, which I think they did with The Awakening. Both bassist and drummer had done extensive work with lots of incredible musicians prior to joining Jamal, and they both bring real force to the Jamal sound. Jamal himself is obviously working with new vocabulary, blending his classic approach, with an active right hand and thick left-hand chords, with very Hancockian touches. The overall sound is darker and meatier than what he was playing ten years earlier. The set list is great, too - "Stolen Moments" and "Dolphin Dance" are highlights.

All of this is to say that while I don't know what Jamal was up to a year and a half later, I find it hard to believe he'd totally stagnated in that time. I don't know what the New Yorker's problem is, but my feeling is that their dismissal of Jamal was undeserved.

Given the choice, though, I wouldn't be going to the Village Gate to catch Jamal (or to the Vanguard, recipient of another burn). My money for show of the week is on the doings at Slugs'. The club would close soon after Lee Morgan was murdered there in 1972, but in '71 the place was happening, with Andrew Hill, Herbie Hancock, James Moody and Eddie Jefferson all appearing there. Damn! Hancock came out with Mwandishi in '71, so my guess is the group from that record (including Jabali/Billy Hart) is the sextet referred to in the listing. Andrew Hill wasn't releasing jack in 1971, but some tracks from '70 got issued by Blue Note in 1975, the the same year Hill released five records on East Wind and Freedom labels; he really got things going again in the mid-1970s, so it would have been cool to hear what he was up to during his absence from the studio.

Overall, though, you can really see how there was a resurgence of clubs as we get into the late 1970s and early 1980s. Even in the late 1980s, you saw swing-era and bebop guys playing all over the city, but they're nowhere to be found this week in 1971.

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From The New Yorker, October 30th, 1971: