Jamal Freeflight

Both albums presented here, Ahmad Jamal at the Top: Poinciana Revisited and Freeflight, offer excellent portraits of the great pianist in transition at the end of the '60s and beginning of the '70s. Both feature Jamal's great rhythm section of bassist Jamil Sulieman Nasser and drummer Frank Grant. The first date was recorded in in 1969 at the Top of the Village Gate in New York City. Its reveals Jamal playing in a more driving, percussive style, though he keeps his utterly elegant chord voicings intact. Check the opening reading of Rodgers & Hart's "Have You Met Miss Jones," played as a slippery, complex, hard bop tune with some modal and Latin elements added. The version of "Poinciana" here is quicker, deeper in the rhythmic cut…

Mostly recorded in Paris, with two additional tracks from New York, this absorbing collection is a testament to the continuing ability of Ahmad Jamal to startle and engage jazz listeners who are tired of Tyner/Evans clones and want to hear something different. An equal mixture of standards and Jamal compositions, some of which move through several contrasting sections, this CD reaches its peaks when Jamal and company dive in and work around a single bass ostinato and a propulsive rhythm groove. Bassists James Cammack (Paris) and Jamil Nasser (New York) provide the former, drummer Idris Muhammad and percussionist Manolo Badrena are in charge of the latter, and a tough-sounding George Coleman turns up on tenor on the New York tracks…

AFew of pianist Ahmad Jamal's many recordings are not worth picking up, and this effort for Atlantic boasts some fresh material and fine playing. Jamal (joined by bassist James Cammack, drummer Herlin Riley, and percussionist Manolo Badrena) performs seven of his little-known originals and the obscure "Yellow Fellow." The close musical communication by the players is, as always, the main reason to acquire this release.