Poinciana - One Night Only

We Say...

Review by Britt Robson

Ahmad Jamal is that rare pianist who is both influential and underrated, utterly accessible yet deceptively complex. Contrary to its title, this collection of live tunes comprises at least two nights spaced three years apart, all of them featuring the classic trio of Jamal, bassist Israel Crosby and drummer Vernell Fournier. “Poinciana” is the number that put Jamal on the map and set the template for his spare, hypnotic, strolling style that so affected Miles Davis.

The next handful of tracks, from The Blackhawk in San Francisco during the early '60s, are marvelous examples of Jamal’s many gifts: His dynamic penchant for mixing single-note phrases with thunderous block chords; his advanced harmonic shadings; his sublime gear-shifts from rhapsodic to conversational and back again; the elegance with which he enters and exits a vamp. “Falling in Love” is particularly strong, and emblematic of the way his touch varies its emphasis from resonant aftertone to percussive impact. These gusts of mood seem completely spontaneous and improvisational, yet the rhythm section seamlessly undergirds his every move.

You can hear the rhythm much more clearly on the tracks beginning with Crosby’s walking-canter on “Surrey,” and these next half-dozen tunes likely stem from dates in the late '50s at the famed Pershing club in Chicago. Jamal is not quite as creative — “Moonlight in Vermont” almost ratifies criticism of him as a cocktail pianist — but the crowd-pleasing riffage of “Music, Music, Music,” showcases his deceptive depth. The collective closes well, including “The Good Life,” a gorgeous ballad (that still finds Jamal flipping from benediction to bitch-slap and back on one occasion), and “Autumn in New York,” which seems to set the clock at dusk, with calm before a foreboding storm.