UK - When the celebrated American jazz pianist-composer Ahmad Jamal played to a sell-out audience at the Barbican Centre in London on Friday 8 February, he insisted on a full Bose RoomMatch system being installed especially for the concert, the first in the UK for four years.
Ahmad Jamal has been praised as one of the greatest jazz innovators over his exceptionally long career, and joins other world renowned artistes and musicians who have performed at the Barbican, Europe's largest multi-arts and conference venue presenting a diverse range of art, music, theatre, dance, film and creative learning events. It is also home to the London Symphony Orchestra.
Considering his four piece ensemble 'an orchestra', Mr Jamal wanted a system that would deliver the most lifelike venue-filling sound to every member of the audience, and previous experience of Bose made the RoomMatch system the natural choice. Audio design engineers worked alongside Ahmad Jamal's production team to design a system specifically for the Barbican venue, with Bose RoomMatch arrays positioned to each side of the stage, and a central cardioid steered bass cluster in the centre.
Two ground stacked arrays consisting of modules and subs provided in-fill, and the whole system was powered with Bose PowerMatch amplification.
With the addition of on stage monitors - one Bose L1 Model II with B2 bass for each of the four musicians - the total Bose solution both on and off stage allowed audience and performers to enjoy every detail of the natural lifelike sound from every seat in the house.
Mr Jamal's producer, Seydou Barry, says, "Ahmad Jamal requested an innovative sound system in order to be able to hear every detail of the original composition. He demands low bass volume on stage, and cannot play comfortably whilst hearing FOH subs . . . which is why he asked Bose to work on a solution with bass directivity control. The collaboration started in April 2012 at the Olympia in Paris where the results were amazing! Mr Jamal likes to work in a family atmosphere, which is why it works so well with Bose & ACM Productions."
Ahmad Jamal himself is delighted with the collaboration, "The level of confidence between my producer, Seydou Barry, and Bose always surprised and reassured me and I enjoyed working with this good atmosphere around me. After the perfectly tuned event at the Olympia in Paris, we decided to go further with Bose."
