But Mosaic Records’ new 9-CD boxed set, The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions, 1956-1962, has set me reeling. It’s a mind-changer.
I still have my reservations, which the collection has only confirmed. Some of the ballads are jejune beyond measure; he treats even a sex-soaked number like “You Go to My Head” as just another tasty, bouncy tune; one of the discs (#5), which features a backup of strings (…
Don’t get me wrong. I like their arch covers of Pink Floyd, Nirvana, and Burt Bacharach as much as the next postmodernist. And I believe them when they said that they’re not spoofing those pop tunes, that they truly love this music. (In my interview with him long ago, the group’s pianist, Ethan Iverson, extolled "Mr. Cobain’s Stravinskyite open-fifths.")
Still, these guys—Iverson, Reid Anderson on bass, and Dave King…