Ahmad Jamal born Frederick Russell Jones was an award winning American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator best known as one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz. Jamal began playing piano at age 3 and at age 7 became a student of the founder of the National Negro Opera Company Mary Cardwell Dawson. He began playing piano professionally at the age of 14. After graduating from high school he began touring with George Hudson’s big band in 1948. In 1950 he moved to Chicag... moreAhmad Jamal born Frederick Russell Jones was an award winning American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator best known as one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz. Jamal began playing piano at age 3 and at age 7 became a student of the founder of the National Negro Opera Company Mary Cardwell Dawson. He began playing piano professionally at the age of 14. After graduating from high school he began touring with George Hudson’s big band in 1948. In 1950 he moved to Chicago, where he converted to Islam, changed his name to Ahmad Jamal and assembled a piano-guitar-bass trio known as the Three Strings. In 1955 Jamal recorded his first full-length album and went on to release more than 60 in his career. His most famous recording, At the Pershing, recorded at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago in 1958 which brought him popularity in the late 1950s and into the 1960s jazz age. In addition, Jamal founded a handful of record labels, a management company and a Chicago nightclub and restaurant called the Alhambra, although that venture lasted less than a year. He won the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award, a lifetime achievement Grammy and induction into France’s Order of Arts and Letters for his contributions to music history.
