The master and the zenith of modern piano, Ahmad Jamal, now at 79 years old, offers another brilliant recording in the pantheon of his legacy with A QUIET TIME, out on Dreyfus Jazz. On A Quiet Time, James Cammack"s butter-thick bass lines and Manolo Badrena"s atmospheric percussion provide the leader with the kind of simpatico support he"s come to expect from his cohorts over the years, buoyed by Kenny Washington"s in-the-pocket drumming, on his first recording with Jamal (in a drum chair that included New Orleans masters like Vernel Fournier, Herlin Riley, and Idris Muhammad). The CD"s eleven tracks are all laced with Jamal"s bottomless reservoir of inventions and dimensions, pulsed by that rhythmic gravity we call swing. Save for the ballad standard "I Hear a Rhapsody," which Jamal first recorded in 1966, and an invigorating, martial rendition of his good friend Randy Weston"s "Hi Fly," the rest of the selections were composed by the leader, the majority of them, from 1997 to 2009. The title track, "Paris After Dark," Flight to Russia," "My Inspiration" dance and trance with Jamalian Latin tinges. "The Love is Lost," "The Blooming Flower," "Poetry" and "After JALC (Jazz at Lincoln Center)," highlight Jamal"s signature mastery of waltz, 4/4 swing, and impressionistic ballad idioms. "Tranquility," a Jamal classic originally recorded in 1968, is reborn here with more intricate, labyrinthine arrangement that expands on the original melodic line.