Audio: Listen to this article.
Of course some of you have literally heard “this.” The title of this article series is more figure of speech than fact, but I hope readers get the gist of what it means. I use the phrase “I bet you’ve never heard this…” when I’m with friends and I’m about to play an album that they’ve never heard but I know they’ll love. The music is frequently followed by, “What album was that!”
Sure we have access to stream “everything” at “anytime” but this firehose of music is overwhelming at best and tends to devalue music as we click through parts of songs here and there. It’s as if these works of art are on a tasting menu for us to sample and push away if the initial taste doesn’t thrill us. In a way we have nothing because we have everything.
In this ongoing series of articles my aim is to share special recordings that have likely been overlooked, forgotten, or remain unknown to many of us. Some of the albums are available to stream, others can be purchased and downloaded, while some are long out of print. Ideally, there will be a path to ownership or a way to listen to every album in this series, although some will be tough to acquire (the challenge of finding an album can be enjoyable though). What fun is it to tell everyone about a fabulous album they can’t enjoy themselves?
I’ve been thinking about this article series for a while and was recently inspired to get it going by feedback from a friend, who not only hadn’t heard one of my favorite albums, but he’d also never heard of the musician who put out the album, sixty years ago! As a fan of great music and great sound, this is the type of article series I’d love to read if I was on the other side of the page. I hope everyone enjoys the heck out of the albums in this series AND contacts me about their own “I bet you’ve never heard this” albums, so I can track them down and consider them for this series.
We don’t use Contact Us forms around here. Send me an email directly and let me know about the albums I’ve never heard, but absolutely must hear - [email protected]
On with the show.
The first album in this series is Ahmad Jamal's Alhambra by pianist Ahmad Jamal. This one comes up on rare occasion in the Album of the Evening thread, but for the most part is one of those gems that rests among the 100,000,000 grains of sand, often overlooked because we are overwhelmed with so much other music. More specifically, the version I listen to most often is the 24 bit / 352.8 kHz DXD version transferred from 15 ips analog tape by the team at High Definition Tape Transfers. A competing version of this album was previously available from Acoustic Sounds’ shuttered download site Super HiRez. That version, as good as it is, was created from a vinyl rip and “features” the telltale signs of such a conversion.
While the HDTT 15 ips transfer from tape to DSD256, and subsequent formats in DSD and PCM, down to 16/44.1, isn’t as clean as a DDD album, there’s beauty in the imperfection of analog tape. A high resolution transfer like this one is as close as we’ll get to hearing the master tape, recorded by Ron Malo in June of 1961 at Ahmad Jamal's own Alhambra club in Chicago, Illinois.
Ahmad Jamal's Alhambra is one of those albums that’s a slow burn. The high resolution tape transfer enables listeners to be transported back in time to the Alhambra, hearing not only the band, but the lucky folks there to enjoy the show. Speaking of the band, Ahmad Jamal on piano, Israel Crosby on bass, and Vernel Fournier on drums perform like a well-oiled machine. These guys managed to make it look easy, playing as if they’d played these tracks a million times, while simultaneously infusing energy and color into the performance. They didn’t go through the motions and phone this one in.
I’ve probably listened to this album a hundred times since I originally purchased it from Acoustic Sounds and subsequently my new favorite version from High Definition Tape Transfers. I love the entire thing, from start to finish.
Track one, We Kiss In A Shadow, is what originally hooked me on the album. The subdued opening ease the listener into the evening. I absolutely love the sound of Fournier’s drums on this recording, and this track is no exception. Sure Jamal is the start of the show, but Fournier really does it for me.
In addition to Shadow, Fournier’s drumming and the sound of his kit on track four, Love For Sale, is stellar. He starts support Jamal, like all great drummers, but then kicks it up a notch before bam, injecting a nice little jolt around the 1:30 mark of the track. Nothing to over the top, but rather a talented drummer doing his part in the band and giving the audience a little wink to say, check this out, but also perfectly accompanying Jamal’s piano.
This album is noted for the band’s interplay during the performance, and I love it for this reason, among all the others. Listening through the entire performance, one gets a sense for these guys as a cohesive unit of musicians and friends. It’s a feel good album on many levels, and it sounds wonderful.
Album Details
Artist: Ahmad Jamal
Album: Ahmad Jamal's Alhambra
Availability: High Resolution DSD / PCM Tape Transfer (link), Tidal (link)
About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system
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