Ahmad Jamal - Ahmad Jamal '73 (Verve Vault Series)

Ahmad Jamal '73 finds the piano great plugging into the soul and funk of its moment, reissued in the Verve Vault Series on 180 gram vinyl.

By then Jamal was already a legend, the pianist whose spacious, elegant trio work had famously caught the ear of Miles Davis. On this 1973 set for 20th Century Records, he turned toward the sounds pouring out of car radios, playing electric piano against lush orchestral arrangements by Richard Evans, who also co-produced the record with him. It was a bold change of setting for a player so closely tied to the acoustic grand.

The track list reads like a snapshot of the era. The World Is a Ghetto stretches War's hit into a nearly ten-minute groove that simmers and swells, and Superstition gives Stevie Wonder's funk classic a jazzier strut. Children of the Night brings in the silky Philadelphia soul of Thom Bell and Linda Creed, and Peace at Last closes the set with warmth and polish. Throughout, Jamal's touch stays light and precise, even with a full orchestra billowing around him, and his sense of space remains as sharp as ever.

It is Jamal in a different light, groovier and more cinematic than his classic trio dates, and a fascinating window onto jazz meeting soul.