Ahmad Jamal • Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse 1966-1968

Deep Digs Music Group/Jazz Detective DDJD-06
Two 180-gram LPs
2023

Music
Sound

by Marc Mickelson | November 27, 2023

his is the third two-LP set of live performances of pianist Ahmad Jamal made in the late 1960s and aired on Seattle radio station KING-FM. Jim Wilkes, a radio host and broadcast engineer, is responsible for the recordings, which the owners of Seattle's Penthouse Club, where the music was recorded, have made available for release. Zev Feldman once again earns his nickname "the Jazz Detective" for unearthing these previously unknown performances. He has done the same for earlier releases on the Resonance Records, Reel to Real Recordings and Deep Digs Music Group/Jazz Detective labels, from the likes of Chet Baker, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Wes Montgomery, Cannonball Adderley, and Johnny Griffin. This set was released on LP for Record Store Day's Black Friday 2023 event in a run of 2300 copies, all of which will be sold out by the time you read this. CDs and digital files will soon be available as well.

Jamal, who passed away in April 2023, personally approved the release of these sessions. He was a pianist of rare gifts -- a child prodigy who began playing at three, performing in his teens, and recording as a leader in his early 20s. His style, seemingly understated, was different from that of so many of his keyboard contemporaries, based on his fluid technique and canny use of the music's space and the piano's dynamics. By the time these sessions were recorded, Jamal was an established headliner whose playing and choice of material didn't succumb to the popularity of rock 'n' roll or the advent of free jazz or spiritual jazz.

There are four different sessions captured here, recorded between September 1966 and April 1968. Each includes Jamil Nasser on bass and Frank Gant on drums, both of whom played on some of the earlier Live at the Penthouse sessions. There are several long -- eight minutes plus -- numbers, often with Jamal supplying an intricate, extended intro, all played with equal parts charm and verve. Among these, "Alfie" stands out, not only because it's a well-worked jazz tune, but, at 9:36 long, it twists and turns past gorgeous sonic vistas as it resolves. As a pianist, Jamal implored rather than demanded, and maybe this is why he performed so often at the Penthouse Club during the middle and late 1960s, a time when America was in almost daily upheaval. Listening to Ahmad Jamal was an effective way to chill out.

Bernie Grundman did the mastering and cut the lacquers from the analog tapes, and the LPs were pressed at GZ Media in the Czech Republic. It should come as no surprise that the sound here is very similar to that of the earlier sets: direct and immediate, with a decent approximation of a soundstage. The applause is a reminder that the Penthouse was a club, not a large concert venue. The audience and the intimate sound help to set an aural scene of music-making happening right in front of you.

The booklet that comes with this set is a trove of interesting photography, and essays from Zev Feldman, Jim Wilkes, journalist Eugene Holley, Jr., Charlie Puzzo, Jr. (son of late Penthouse owner Charlie Puzzo), and Marshall Chess (of Chess/Argo/Cadet Records, which released some of Jamal's most important recordings). However, as with the earlier releases in this series, Jamal's own words give the greatest insight on his playing and performing.

On the back cover of the booklet is a photo of a baker's dozen of reel-to-reel tapes, the box for each labeled "Ahmad Jamal." I don't know if this means there is more of this music to come or the well has run dry. Either way, we can revel in what we have: six LPs of previously unreleased music from a jazz master at the top of his considerable game.