The legacy of Ahmad Jamal and Pittsburgh’s jazz roots were celebrated on Wednesday at the Community Engagement Center in Homewood at the Journeys & Jazz event.

Jamal, a Homewood native whose career as a jazz pianist started as early as age 11, is having a collection of his work preserved by the University of Pittsburgh Library, which will later be processed into an archive.

“Ahmad Jamal was raised in Pittsburgh on this side of town, so this material belongs to this community, and it is important to celebrate and let residents know that this is here,” said Ed Galloway, associate university librarian for archives & special collections at the University of Pittsburgh. “We don’t often get to take an archive into the community before it is made available for research, so this is a really special thing, to take pieces of it and talk about it.”

For the celebration, a preview of that collection was displayed, including records, sheet music, photographs, telegrams and other works representing the life of Jamal, who died in 2023 at the age of 92. These included his early years playing in clubs at age 11 for $4 a night, his touring career beginning at 17, and his landmark album “At the Pershing: But Not for Me.”

The collection also includes information on Jamal’s restaurant The Alhambra, which he opened in Chicago and that had Moroccan and American flair. He played piano there nightly. The library’s collection also includes what may be the only preserved menu from the restaurant.

“It is important that we dispel the notion that these materials are only for scholars. They are for everyday people to see themselves in these collections, to know that these celebrated people started here and that their greatness was nurtured by this community,” Galloway said.

The event was the second iteration of Journeys & Jazz. The first was held Feb. 12 at the Hill District’s Community Engagement Center. The audience included a range of people, some who knew Jamal well and are legends in their own right, as well as elders of the community including Nelson Harrison, James Johnson Jr. and Pamela Johnson of the Afro-American Music Institute, along with vocalist and keyboard player Bashir Ansari.

The Afro-American Music Institute is the recipient of one of Jamal’s two nine-foot grand pianos, with the second housed in Bellefield Hall at Pitt.

“It’s a hypnotic thing. There is something spiritual about that piano,” Johnson said.

Johnson reminded the audience that Jamal’s legacy couldn’t be discussed without including Erroll Garner and Sam Johnson. Both Nelson and Johnson noted that jazz musicians are spontaneous, often playing on the fly and changing keys at any moment so no one could capture their sound. Jamal was highly improvisational. Jazz is a “very specific language,” in the words of Harrison.

“Ahmad and I were best friends. We were closer than anyone for almost 50 years, from ’74 until he died. We talked all the time and he was a mentor. I still miss him,” said Harrison, 84, a musician and music educator.

“These events have to go on if there is any sense to our culture at all. Someone like him, who took the world by storm, if they don’t acknowledge it at home, then shame on Pittsburgh. We have so many firsts, and that should be celebrated,” Harrison said.

Regina Brown’s grandparents owned a home in Homewood, where they played an Ahmad Jamal album endlessly.

“I think we played a hole in that album,” she said.

Brown’s father, J.C. Moses, was also a notable drummer.

“This is exciting. I appreciate music, and when it comes to cultural connections interwoven with Black history, these are the sections of Pittsburgh where it really stands out,” Brown said.

“This is part of the rhythm of our life. Jazz is the improvisation of a theme, and that is the way Black people have survived. They have taken the spiritual and made it into rock ’n’ roll, rap and jazz. We work with what we’ve got,” said attendee David Coleman.

Following the discussion was a live performance by the Cliff Barnes Organ Quartet, featuring James Johnson III on drums. Johnson, who played with Jamal for 10 years thanks to an introduction from Harrison, last performed with him during Jamal’s final show in 2019 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

The night was also about collaboration and bringing people together.

“It’s very important to collaborate between the CEC, our university partners, the special archives at the Hillman Library, and the Afro-American Music Institute to share stories. Music is one of those things that brings people together,” said Vernard Alexander, director of the Community Engagement Center in Homewood. 

“The reason I chose this group is that drummer James Johnson played with Ahmad Jamal. Cliff is a great organ player, we don’t have a piano here. Dr. Yoko Suzuki, on saxophone, is one of the teachers at Pitt,” said Chad Taylor, artistic director of Jazz Studies at Pitt.

Taylor noted that much of Jamal’s work has been sampled in classic hip-hop songs, such as Nas’ “The World Is Yours” and “Stakes Is High” by De La Soul.

“His music has really affected all sorts of music, and a lot of people don’t know,” Taylor said.

The quartet played several of Jamal’s songs, including a tribute piece by Johnson.

Drummer and producer James Johnson III described the feeling of playing on Wednesday as happiness and freedom.

“Everyone that walked in the door today honored Ahmad Jamal,” Johnson said.

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