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Frederick Russell Jones was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 2, 1930. When he was four years old his uncle challenged him to repeat what he, the uncle, was playing on the family’s piano. Young Fritz was able to reproduce by ear everything his uncle played. Fritz studied piano from that moment on. At the age if 17, after graduating high school Fritz Jones joined the band of fellow Pittsburgher, George Hudson, calling himself Freddie, because of the the unpopularity of the German sounding name “Fritz’ during and right after WWII.

Sometime in 1952 Jones converted to Islam at the oldest mosque in America, located in Chicago, and founded by Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, an Indian born missionary. At the time of is conversion Jones changed his name to Ahmad Jamal.

Ahmad Jamal’s piano style was very spare, depending on unusual chord voicings with his left hand and simple, single line improvisations with his right, emphasized by flights of virtuosity. He influenced trumpeter Miles Davis’ melodic style on the trumpet. Saxophonist John Coltrane was also an Ahmad Jamal fan.

Here is a 1959 performance of Ahmad Jamal with his trio, entitled Darn That Dream.”

I’m going to interrupt the normal flow of thing to bring you a clip from last year’s Philadelphia Folk Festival. I just returned from the 2008 festival, where I worked on the production crew. Last year the Lovell sisters played some of the side stages of Friday and then came down to Maryland to do a concert at The Mainstay, where I had the privilege of doing sound for them, before they returned to play the festival main stage on Sunday night. This is from their 2007 Sunday night performance at PFF.

I have a post about the 2008 festival here, with some photos.

Soul star, composer, film star and South Park character actor Isaac Hayes died today of an apparent heart attack. He was found lying next to a still running treadmill in his Memphis Tennessee home. Hayes was 65 years old.

Here is a clip of a performance from 1973 of Haye’s singing his movie theme song Shaft, for which he won an Oscar and two Grammys. Hayes’ entrance onto the stage is modeled after professional wrestling. Jessie Jackson, with a very full head of hair, is on stage at first and says something off mic to Hayes before exiting the stage. I hope it wasn’t about Barack Obama.