Ahmad Jamal was a jazz piano master whose feathery touch, lyrical elegance and pinpoint command of dynamics and the space between notes profoundly inspired Miles Davis and a host of other famous admirers. While he could play spirited cadenzas with the best of them, Jamal made saying more with less an art form.
His death Sunday from complications from prostate cancer at the age of 92 leaves a major void in a music world that he indelibly influenced.
It comes just three years after the final concert of Jamal's storied career took place at at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 8, 2020. If not for the pandemic shutdown, he would have continued to perform.
