Ahmad Jamal - Ahmad Jamal '73 (1973/2026) [Hi-Res]

Released in 1973 on the 20th Century label, Ahmad Jamal '73 marked a bold and surprising creative departure for one of jazz's most acclaimed and distinctive pianists. For this album — the first of seven studio works he would make for the label — Ahmad Jamal set aside the acoustic piano that had defined his sound for two decades and recorded entirely on the electric Fender Rhodes, trading the intimate small-group setting of his classic trios for an expanded orchestra arranged and conducted by his co-producer Richard Evans. The result is a record that sits at a fascinating crossroads: one foot planted firmly in Jamal's jazz roots, the other stepping decisively into the soul, funk, and R&B sounds that were dominating popular music in the early 1970s.

The choice of material is bold and perfectly judged. War's The World Is A Ghetto — at nearly ten minutes the album's centrepiece — receives a hypnotically lush, Rhodes-led treatment that transforms the soul classic into something spacious and meditative, Jamal's electric keyboard weaving through Richard Evans's orchestration with the unhurried authority of a musician who knows exactly where he is going. Stevie Wonder's Superstition is equally striking — the irresistible funk riff rendered in Jamal's own harmonic language, with massive string and horn arrangements that give the track an orchestral grandeur entirely its own. Original compositions Sustah, Sustah and the closing Peace At Last demonstrate that Jamal's voice as a writer was equally at home in this new sonic landscape.

Ahmad Jamal – electric piano
Richard Evans – arranger, conductor, co-producer