CD: Ahmad Jamal, After Fajr

Everyone from Miles Davis to Diana Krall have namechecked veteran Pittsburgh-born pianist and composer Ahmad Jamal. At 75, Jamal is just as dapper, graceful, musical, dramatic and sensitive to his surroundings as ever. He still has an ear for a strong theme, too, meaning that this set, recorded in France in 2004, is easily as good as 2003's In Search of ... Momentum, if not quite as strong as the sax-assisted Olympia 2000.

It features the same trio Jamal recently brought to London, with Idris Muhammad on drums and James Cammack on bass. There's an elegaic vocal on the title track, an original with a spiritual message and a typically circuitous melody, even if it does boast a Jamal lyric that's unlikely to rank among his greatest achievements.

That, however, is the sole blot on the landscape. Indeed Jamal appears to be on a roll these days, composing plenty of new material and improvising better than he did 50 years ago. As one of the most orchestral of keyboard players, his understanding of how to bend harmonies on the fly is uncanny, while he is drummer-like in his emphasis.

The repertoire comprises standards and originals. On Jerome Kern's I'm Old Fashioned, a soft tapestry of intertwining lines give way to a whispering swing, passages alternating in familiar Jamal fashion between stamping choruses and airy lyricism. The ballad After Fajr, with its soulful, if stagey vocal inflections, is full of distant keyboard wizardry, and the uptempo Milan is a highlight of the set, thanks to its restraint and bursts of headlong swing.

Elsewhere another ballad, Yours is My Heart Alone, is lent muscle by the long-note growl of Cammack's bass; Swahililand is a classic Jamal melodrama; and Time on My Hands is a masterclass in letting the rhythm section do most of the work.

There's no sign of this ageless giant losing his touch just yet.