It may well seem incredulous today, but this material originates from a period when it wasn’t uncommon for successful jazz artists to release two or three albums a year. At its peak of popularity, the Ahmad Jamal Trio shifted albums in pop-like quantities not usually associated with most jazz players. Such was Jamal’s popularity that he was often dismissed as a lightweight by critics who failed to comprehend that his simplistic style was most appealing, even if most tracks clocked in at under four minutes. Sure, there were exceptions. The album version of ‘Poinciana’ was an eight minute-plus performance, but when edited down to single length big bucks beckoned. It paved the way for But Not For Me, Jamal’s first album of ‘live’ Pershing Lounge recordings, selling two million copies, reaching No. 3 on the national album charts, remaining amongst the best sellers for over two years.

One purchaser was Miles Davis. Not one to freely hand out plaudits, Miles admitted being greatly influenced by the piano man’s judicious use to time and space to the point of adding Jamal’s treatments of ‘But Not For Me’, ‘Billy Boy’, ‘The Surrey With The Fringe On Top,’ among others, into his own repertoire. This three CD/58-track collection affirms that with unobtrusive support from Israel Crosby and Vernell Fournier, Jamal’s somewhat unorthodox thinking may have been closest to Erroll Garner in his good humoured approach to vast tracts of the Great American Songbook – punctuated by the occasional bop chart – but he most definitely remained his own man and not to be mistaken for any other player. Roy Carr