The University of Pittsburgh Library System is pleased to announce the acquisition of the archive of jazz pianist and Pittsburgh native Ahmad Jamal. A composer and virtuoso of jazz piano, Jamal was cited as a significant influence by none other than jazz legend Miles Davis. Jamal, who began playing piano at age three, attended Westinghouse High School and played piano in the “K-Dets,” one of the first high school jazz orchestras in the country.
His big break came in 1958 when his album At the Pershing became a surprising smash hit, selling a million copies and staying on the Billboard charts for 108 weeks. His performance of 1930s jazz standard “Poinciana” on the album has become the definitive recording of the song. The success of the album propelled his career, making his trio one of the most popular jazz performing acts of the 1950s and 1960s.
While Jamal continued to record and tour the world throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, he never forgot his hometown. In 1989 he released an album called simply Pittsburgh, which he described as “a tribute to my beloved hometown.” Jamal’s music took on a curious revival in the 1990s and the 2000s when his performances were sampled hundreds of times by hip hop artists, including The Game, De La Soul, Nas, Jay-Z, and Common. Jamal released his last album, the solo and duo album Ballades, in 2019.
Jamal earned the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award (1994) and won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy (2017) for his contributions to music history. He passed away on April 16, 2023.
The Ahmad Jamal Archive will join other notable jazz collections held at Pitt, including that of pianist Erroll Garner, a fellow Westinghouse alum and one of the artists Jamal said was an inspiration to him, pianist Dave Burrell, and saxophonist Sam Rivers, who never played with Jamal but worked with the same golden age musicians, including Miles Davis. “There could be no better home for my father’s collection than the University of Pittsburgh,” said Sumayah Jamal. “I know that he would have been thrilled to have his collection back home, alongside that of his friend and major influence, Erroll Garner.”
The collection contains hundreds of manuscript scores and compositions in Jamal’s hand, photographs, posters and publicity material, honorary degrees, audio recordings, notebooks, correspondence, scrapbooks, newsclippings, and awards, including his NEA Jazz Master.
Aaron Johnson, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Music at Pitt, said, “Ahmad Jamal was emblematic of the great tradition of jazz piano from Pittsburgh, so it is a great pleasure for the treasure of Jamal’s archive to be entrusted to the University of Pittsburgh Library System. Jamal, a NEA Jazz Master (1994), was, along with Erroll Garner, among the most successful leaders of small groups in jazz history and now the archives of both Pittsburgh greats have come home. Jamal was an exceptionally virtuosic pianist who also was a favorite of audiences around the world. Jamal’s archives will be an important and vital resource for jazz research, and this acquisition, along with the music and business archives of fellow pianists Erroll Garner, Dave Burrell, and saxophonists Sam Rivers, and in concert with our graduate program in Jazz Studies, makes the University of Pittsburgh a significant place to do jazz research.”
Contact Information:
Kathy Haines, Head, Center for American Music, University of Pittsburgh Library System (kmill@pitt.edu)
