album #37

ahmad jamal at the pershing (ahmad jamal)

A sublime album, one of my favorite finds from my friend's album project. I think of this album less as a matter of individual songs, and more the continuum of a concert. I love live recordings; the ambience of the crowd's engagement, the way the music reverberates out to the space- space we're free to imagine.

Here's a thing I'm thinking about just now, the difference between picturing music that takes place in a studio (where it's really anywhere we want it to be, evokes anything we want) and recorded music that takes place live (this album, for me, always evokes itself, a sharp '60s crowd awash in blue, a hint of smoke.) Though maybe that's not fair to say- after all, what this album Really evokes is The Blue Note, back when (I think it was Katie) I attended a performance there. And At Folsom Prison, though I always feel the environment (I picture it as concrete yellows, brownish gray uniforms), I suppose it also takes me out to the wilderness- but not quite the total way that, say, Red Headed Stranger does. And I bet the environment is a key factor there. The audience becomes an instrument, an element of the expression, and therefore an element of the interpretation. It's pretty true of actually live-attended concerts, the music is the focus but so much of the experience comes from the shared sensations of the crowd, the feeling of sharing something vibrant and connective.

This makes me feel like reading up more on Walter Benjamin or talking to Annie. In any event, this is a delightful album, cool, melodic, elegant, charming. A very good listen, an artist worth knowing more.