Clarke Duke Project

"When I listen to these records now… when I listen to the Pershing, it's phenomenal, I must say. What they were doing, phenomenal, the lines and the purity. It's so pure … It was sheer joy working with these two individuals. Master musicians," writes pianist/bandleader Ahmad Jamal in the liner notes to this collection. If there ever was a subject worthy of a Mosaic box set, Jamal is it. For six decades, he has been, for several reasons, one of the most enduring and identifiable artists in jazz, or, as he prefers to describe it, "American classic music." First, there is his sound: a breathtaking amalgam of Erroll Garner's pithy touch, Nat "King" Cole's intricate horn-like, pre-bop lines, and Art Tatum's Mephistophelean technique.