While the collector’s edition is only available for pre-order at the moment, there’s a sense following last week’s news that Blue Moon has been nominated for a Grammy in the best jazz instrumental album category, and ahead of his receiving a lifetime achievement award at the inaugural Jazz FM awards in late-January, that Ahmad Jamal will start 2013 just where he left off 2012: back in the limelight where he undoubtedly belongs.

Released in the New Year the collector’s edition of Blue Moon adds a DVD of a concert he and his trio of Reginald Veal and Herlin Riley, plus percussionist Manolo Badrena, gave at the Olympia theatre in Paris on 27 June, four months after the original album release.

The DVD is faithful to the album covering most of the tracks, so in one sense it is a souvenir but one that Jamal fans will want to have. With pin-sharp images of the musicians in action, good sound, and while watching a DVD is never the same as being there or listening to the album on its own, a deeply satisfying document of a fine concert in front of an appreciative audience. There are no bells and whistles, no steadicam mayhem or flick-flickery stunt editing. It’s simple but effective. Blue Moon as an album stands by itself (it’s a joy from start to finish), but watching the DVD makes you want to seek out the songs that bit more. For instance, I found myself listening to different versions of Billy Reid’s ‘The Gypsy’ last night both as a vocal (by such fine interpreters of the song as Frank Sinatra, and the Ink Spots) and instrumental: the devastatingly sad version performed by Charle Parker during the ‘Lover Man’ session on 29 July 1946. Jamal’s version, like ‘Laura’ is beautiful, and goes into the song in such a way that it’s conceived anew. No one does this better than Ahmad Jamal.

Stephen Graham

The artwork of Blue Moon above

The collector’s edition is released on 14 January. Ahmad Jamal plays the Barbican in London on 8 February