The Ultimate Ahmad Jamal Playlist

Adam Maness (0:00)

Ahmad Jamal, a master of taste, time, and touch. A hero to Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Nas, and J Dilla. This is the Ultimate Ahmad Jamal Playlist.

I'm Adam Maness.

Peter Martin (0:16)

And I'm Peter Martin.

Adam Maness (0:17)

And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast.

Peter Martin (0:19)

Music Explored.

Adam Maness (0:20)

Explored brought to you today by the You'll Hear It Players Club, Peter. This is a brand new set of lessons that I began this season of the podcast, where I'm going to do a selection of songs that we're going to do throughout the season. And I'm going to teach you how to play them from a very basic level. So if you have been thinking, I wish I could dust off my instrument and learn how to play, I don't know, Led Zeppelin's The Ocean or Radiohead's Weird Fishes or Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely?

Peter Martin (0:44)

Well, that one I know already, but yeah.

Adam Maness (0:45)

Well, you do. But man, lock in, plug in, because we're going to...

Peter Martin (0:49)

Let's plug into the Players Club. Plug into the Players Club.

Adam Maness (0:52)

You can click the link in the description to learn more about the Players Club.

Peter Martin (0:57)

Go to youllhearit.com. Sorry, I had to throw that in there.

Adam Maness (0:59)

That's right. One more bit of housekeeping before we get going on this incredible lesson. While you're at youllhearit.com, leave us a voicemail because we are going to do a mailbag episode coming up and we want to hear from you.

Peter Martin (1:09)

Right. And you might be scared because you're like, oh, my voice is going to be on the... If I leave you a speak pipe or a message that your voice is going to be on the podcast, and you would be right to be scared. It will be. But think about us. Our voice is all over this for an hour every week. So join the party.

Adam Maness (1:23)

Yeah, join the party. Plug in.

Peter Martin (1:25)

No, but you get a chance. Don't be nervous.

You get a chance to submit it first. I know a lot of people think, oh, I'm just, I'm talking and it's being recorded. You have a chance to approve it or not.

Adam Maness (1:35)

Yeah, you can edit it. You can approve it. You can redo it. Yeah.

Peter Martin (1:37)

I don't know about editing. Don't get excited, buddy.

Adam Maness (1:39)

No, you can literally plug it. Plug in, Peter. Plug in. Okay.

Peter Martin (1:43)

Today's an exciting day.

Adam Maness (1:44)

Oh my gosh. I'm so excited.

Peter Martin (1:45)

I know. I know you're about to say that, but it really is. I mean, we're talking about not only a legend, but a gentleman.

SPEAKER_4 (1:51)

A goat, for sure.

Peter Martin (1:53)

A steward of jazz piano for multiple generations.

An OG, but really one of the most influential musicians that we're ever going to talk about on this pod in several different ways, beyond just what we're going to celebrate, which is mostly going to be this incredible pianism. Is that a word? We don't know. We say the word. Do you know what I mean by it? Yes. So it becomes a word.

Adam Maness (2:14)

You're talking about the vegetable, the pea? The snow pea?

Peter Martin (2:17)

Pianism. Pianistic abilities.

And we're talking about none other than.

Adam Maness (2:22)

Ahmad Jamal, the great, the great one, the great man, Ahmad Jamal, I mean, he is a hero to both of us. He's a hero to most modern jazz musicians and a lot of modern musicians because of his incredible sensibilities, like one of the greatest masters of time, touch, feel, melody, improvisation, voicings, taste. He ran an amazing band for years. I love this. One of the stats that we have here on our worksheet for this episode, Peter, is that Ahmad Jamal was active playing and recording music from 1948 to 2020

Peter Martin (2:57)

Yes.

Adam Maness (2:58)

That's 72 years. That's longer than Queen Elizabeth's reign in the 20th century, which is astounding.

Peter Martin (3:05)

That's right. And he earned his. He wasn't just born into it.

Adam Maness (3:08)

No, he really did earn it. If you're not familiar with Ahmad Jamal, first of all, where you've been, second of all, I'm envious of you today because you get to experience some of the great music of the 20th century for the first time.

Peter Martin (3:20)

Yeah. And I think there's actually probably a lot of people don't feel shameful if you're not familiar. I think there's a lot of people that know the name and haven't really heard. Well, actually they have heard. And I think that that's gonna, how quickly does, oh, it's gonna happen pretty quick. But yeah, I think he's one of those artists that really has name recognition, but a lot of people haven't dug in. So like you say, envious for sure. It's gonna be, this is a great time because I think we have an incredible, what do we have 10 or 11 tracks here?