Acclaimed Jazz Pianist Ahmad Jamal Dies at 92

New York, 17 Apr (ONA) --- Acclaimed jazz pianist, composer and band leader Ahmad Jamal has died aged 92.

Ahmad Jamal was a lifelong friend of jazz icon Miles Davis and influenced a generation of musicians.

He was known for a sparse playing style - often placing silence between notes - and critics hailed his "less is more dynamics".

Jamal, who called jazz "American classical music", said during his life that he liked to honour what he described as the spaces in the music.

He started his seven-decade jazz career as a teenager in the bebop age of virtuosic showmanship - but his style evolved rapidly.

His laid-back approach quickly became influential and commercial success followed with his 1958 album At the Pershing: But Not for Me - one of the best-selling instrumental records of its time, BBC news reported.

In a piece written last year to mark the release of some of his unissued recordings, the magazine the New Yorker wrote that in the 1950s, "his musical concept was one of the great innovations of the time, even if its spare, audacious originality was lost on many listeners".

Jamal won countless awards over his career, including France's Ordre des Arts and des Lettres in 2007 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

--- Ends/Khalid