American jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal dies aged 92

Ahmad Jamal, famous American jazz pianist, composer and conductor, died at the age of 92, French and American media announced on Sunday.

reported

.

His daughter Sumayah Jamal told The

that he has prostate cancer.

Ahmad Jamal has influenced the work of famous musicians such as trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist McCoy Tyner.

Multiple awards

Ahmad Jamal - born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh and who converted to Islam in 1950 - received multiple awards during his seven-decade career.

He was notably made a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France in 2007 and had won a Grammy Award for his entire career in 2017.

African-American, he began his career in the 1940s during the bebop revolution and helped attract a wider audience to jazz.

His style is described as based on surprise, ruptures, the use of silences, with romantic accents, with a phrasing that is both dynamic and light.

Read alsoAhmad Jamal: “For Marciac, I want to get out of my house”

The New Yorker, in an article published last year on the occasion of the release of several unreleased recordings, said that in the 1950s "

”.

The album "

", released in 1958, marked the beginning of his success.

It spent more than 100 weeks on the Billboard chart, the American ranking of the most popular titles.

According to the New York Times, it became one of the best-selling instrumental records of the time.

Dozens more followed in what The Times called a "

."

In an interview with The Times in late 2022, Ahmad Jamal said: "

"

," he added.