Learning From Ahmad Jamal About Moving Ideas

So much of what is done as work by knowledge-professionals in today’s complex organizations is about delivering messages, moving ideas. Be they instructions, directions, opinions, suggestions, lessons, rules, pitches, or any of the endless other ways of trying to get our ideas across, delivering a message, or sharing an idea, is a big part of everybody’s job. It is also taken for granted, as with so much of what happens in these same organizations, that those who do more, succeed more. But, what if doing less is an equally attractive route to success? Jazz pianist, Ahmad Jamal, long acclaimed for his innovativeness, played less, and succeeded more. Mr. Jamal, who passed away earlier this week, on April 16^th, 2023, did not necessarily play less gigs, but he played fewer notes, and spaced them differently, and that became his signature difference. Anyone, who is in a position to deliver a message to an informed audience, can learn much from Mr. Jamal.

With all sharing of ideas, especially presentations, balancing content with delivery approach is essential, in order to gain an audience’s engagement. All too often, more content is seen as a way of establishing subject-matter credibility, and winning the audience over by the sheer weight of the content presented. This is a broadcast approach, where the message travels exclusively from the front of a room to the rear. What Ahmad Jamal knew, that so many presenters miss, is that more content is not always the way to win an audience’s attention. In most leadership idea-sharing, there is already abundant knowledge in the room, and it is to the presenter’s advantage to engage that talent in an effort to move the direction of conversation, and learning, away from only front-to-rear, and more towards side-to side, participation. In most presentations, the magic really occurs when others become engaged enough to jump-in, from the sides, and share the presenter’s role, using their talent and experience to ensure a richer, more robust discussion. In such situations, while content remains critical to hold the audience’s attention and does give the presenter credibility, creating accessible space in the delivery of the message is also vital, so that there is room for others to join-in. It is in the provision of such space, that Ahmad Jamal made his mark. Jamal did this by “compact[ing] it, chopping out notes where notes ought to have been. Or he extended it, inserting rests into his music where no one would think to put them, and certainly where no popular musician … would ever envision them.”

Jazz is more than music; it’s about ideas. Miles Davis, one of the most recognized, and revered, jazz musicians in history, spoke about his job in terms that put ideas front and center: “I’m happy if I can play one new idea on a night ….I try to learn something new every night.” As a result, a lot of jazz is devoted to idea-sharing with other musicians, and with an audience. In both cases, the hope is to engage and test them, so that something new, and provocative, results. Ahmad Jamal excelled at this because he ‘approached every song as a distinct composition, with something unique always located within in it.” Armed with such knowledge of how each piece worked, and having identified the core idea that he wanted to get out of it, he was able to then develop ways of both emphasizing that idea, while also allowing his group to play a larger role in its presentation. In the process, “Jamal seemed to have reversed the basic premise of the piano trio: it was he who was often accompanying the drums and the bass,” and not the other way around. Miles Davis understood how this increased a sense of inclusion in Jamal’s group, involving his rhythm section in a way that was immediate and first-hand; engaging them as a full-fledged, up-front part of the presentation: “Listen to the way Jamal uses space. He lets it go so that you can feel the rhythm section and the rhythm section can feel you.”

Compare this, if you will, with a much anticipated collaboration of Ahmad Jamal’s good friend, and virtuoso pianist, Art Tatum, and saxophonist Ben Webster. Great as he was, Tatum’s opening solo produced such a large, baroque, output of notes that Ben Webster was intimidated to the point of hesitation in entering-in on the opening track of The Album. The resulting outcome was far from being “a group of equals,” or even a collaboration; missing the opportunity to fully explore what two significant, but different, talents could bring to such a collaboration.

Ahmad Jamal also realized, as music critic Martin Williams famously observed, that his “real instrument is not the piano at all, but his audience.” He played that audience by reducing the quantity of the notes – his content— that he played, and spaced those remaining notes that he did play, so that his rhythm group could “shine through;” in this way, less then became more: more music, more musicians involved, and a more interesting composition resulting. New Orleans pianist Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John, explained what Jamal was doing, to National Public Radio: “it was the gaps…. the space that [Ahmad Jamal] left out” of his playing that opened-up his music to others. While it sounds simple, giving-up control and opening-up space for others is never easy, but the results of more inclusion in the delivery of such a message can be memorable. The New Yorker magazine wrote that "Ahmad Jamal’s” musical concept was one of the great innovations of the time….,” and the iconic trumpeter Miles Davis, in considering his own work, once exclaimed that "All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal."

Jazz may be worlds away from your business, but it is a business, and great talent is involved in producing its product. As a result, there are leadership lessons to be learned from the great jazz-masters, and in the case of delivering a message, or sharing ideas, Ahmad Jamal’s lessons are well-worth paying attention to:

· Set-out to play the audience, not the notes. It is the Customer Experience that is paramount.

· Understand your content well-enough so that you can pare-down the excess information, exposing the message to be delivered more clearly.

· Identify what the one central idea is, at each stage of your message, and ensure that that is delivered directly, and unpretentiously.

· Trust your team, or even the audience, well-enough to realize that their involvement can make your delivery more engaging.