Khan Jamal

Khan Jamal – born Warren Cheeseboro on July 23, 1946, in Jacksonville, Florida –was a jazz vibraphone and marimba player. He is best-known for his work in the jazz fusion, hard bop, and free jazz genres. Raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he didn’t begin to play the vibraphone until he was in his late teens. After attending the Granoff School of Music and the Combs College of Music, he formed his first band, Cosmic Forces, in the late 1960s. During this period, he also played with the Sun Ra Arkestra, but left the group and joined the band Untouchable Factor, which was made up of former Arkestra members. In 1970, Khan Jamal co-founded the group Sounds of Liberation with avant-garde jazz saxophonist/flautist Byard Lancaster. After recording one album with the group – 1972’s New Horizons – Khan Jamal formed his own group and released his solo debut album, Drum Dance to the Motherland, in 1972. He followed that album with a series of well-received albums including Give the Vibes Some (1974), The River (1978), Dark Warrior (1984), Thinking of You (1986), Percussion & Strings (1997), Nothing Is Wrong (2003), Fire and Water (2007), and Impressions of Coltrane (2009). Over the course of his career, Khan Jamal worked with a variety of artists including Joe Bonner, Charles Tyler, Billy Bang, and Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society. Suffering from kidney failure, Khan Jamal died on January 10, 2022.

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