Segerstrom Center for the Arts presents Grammy Award Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Ahmad Jamal for one performance only on Oct. 19 at 8 p.m. The extraordinary night of music features the jazz legend and celebrated pianist-composer, who returns to the Center with his quartet: James Cammack, bass; Herlin Riley, drums; and Manolo Badrena, percussion.
Single tickets start at $49 and are available now online at www.SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Dr. in Costa Mesa or by calling 714-755-0236.
Ahmad Jamal was born on July 2, 1930 in Pittsburgh, Penn., the home of many artists known the world over for their work and contributions to both European Classical Music and American Classical Music.
Jamal began playing the piano at age three and started his formal studies with Mary Cardwell Dawson, a significant personality in the development of talented African American singers and musicians in the first half of the 20th century. She was a noted musician, teacher and founding director of the National Negro Opera Company. She was the person responsible for placing the first African Americans in the Metropolitan Opera, including Robert McFerrin, father of jazz vocalist and conductor Bobby McFerrin. After Dawson moved to Washington, D.C., Jamal continued his studies with James Miller, a contemporary of Earl Wild, both Pittsburgh natives.
Jamal was composing and orchestrating at ten years of age and performing works by Franz Liszt and exploring the music of Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Nat Cole, Erroll Garner and a host of others, learning the repertoire that comprises the American Song Book. He became so proficient, amassing a huge repertoire, that he was employed by Pittsburgh masters three and four times his age and joined the American Federation of Musicians at 14, although the minimum age requirement at that time was 16.
He left home at the request of the George Hudson Orchestra at the age of 17 and began touring the country.
He formed his own group in 1951 and, with the help of John Hammond, started his recording career with Okeh Records. That career has continued for more than six decades and has resulted in one of the most successful recordings in the history of Instrumental music, “At The Pershing: But Not For Me.” It was used by Clint Eastwood in “The Bridges of Madison County” and featured prominently in ”The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Segerstrom Center’s 2018-2019 Jazz Series continues with the Kenny Barron Quintet (Nov. 3, 2018), Diana Krall—Turn Up The Quiet World Tour 2018 (Nov. 4, 2018), “The Beautiful Day”—Kurt Elling Sings Christmas (Dec. 15, 2018), Branford Marsalis Quartet and Yuko Mabuchi Trio (Jan. 25, 2019) and Catherine Russell (March 23, 2019).
