Tell us about your latest release and how that came together.
My latest release is called Ballades, and we finished that in Paris. At the time, we were doing Marseille, and in between takes, I did some solo work and a couple of duets with James, my bassist, and Ballades came out of that. It grew from there, and that was released in 2019.
I’m working on another project with my daughter. We are co-producing singer, songwriter, guitarist Philip Solomon. She is writing lyrics to my compositions, Ahmad’s Blues, If I Find You Again, and possibly others. Philip is singing those songs and also singing the lyrics to Poinciana (Nat Simon, Buddy Bernier), etc. I’m also producing some original songs of his. I’ve been very busy with new arrangements and such virtually, but that is harder than meeting in the studio together and working. The CD will be released soon, and I have a feeling it will be monumental. That arrangement of Poinciana contains the work of two very important people — Israel Crosby and Vernel Fournier. I find it very difficult to duplicate what we did together, so I am sampling some parts of it. To try to duplicate that energy and musicality exactly is nearly impossible.
Website: ahmadjamal.com
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