Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Khan Jamal was born Warren Robert Cheeseboro in Jacksonville, Florida on July 23, 1946. His father worked as an entrepreneur, his mother a stride pianist. Raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began playing the vibraphone during the later part of his teenage years in the mid Sixties. He went on to attend the Granoff School of Music and the Combs College of Music.

Jamal first played for a group called Cosmic Forces during the later part of the 1960s. He played with the Sun Ra Arkestra. After leaving the group, he teamed up with several of its former members to play with Sunny Murray’s group Untouchable Factor.

He later co-founded Sounds of Liberation with Byard Lancaster in 1970. The band released its only album titled New Horizons, two years later on its own record label Dogtown. However, it gained little impact outside Philadelphia at the time. In addition to leading his own groups, Jamal performed with Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society in the 1980s, Joe Bonner, Billy Bang, Charles Tyler and others. His first solo album was Drum Dance to the Motherland, a live recording that was held in a small café in his hometown and first released in 1973.

His style connected the two contrasting forms of free jazz and jazz fusion. He was also known for his skill of shifting modes and moods. Vibraphone and marimba player Khan Jamal suffered from kidney failure prior to his transition on January 10, 2022, at the Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia. He was 75.