Monday, November 30, 2015

A00056 - Ahmad Jamal, Jazz Pianist

Ahmad Jamal (born Frederick Russell Jones, July 2, 1930) is an American jazz pianist, composer, group leader, and educator. For five decades, he has been one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz.[1]

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Jamal was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano.[2] Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he describes as greatly influencing him. His Pittsburgh roots have remained an important part of his identity ("Pittsburgh meant everything to me and it still does," he said in 2001)[3] and it was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. Jamal also studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen,[4] at which point he was recognized as a "coming great" by the pianist Art Tatum.[5] When asked about his practice habits by a The New York Times critic, Jamal commented that, "I used to practice and practice with the door open, hoping someone would come by and discover me. I was never the practitioner in the sense of twelve hours a day, but I always thought about music. I think about music all the time."[6]

Career[edit]

Jamal began touring with George Hudson's Orchestra after graduating from George Westinghouse High School in 1948.[7] He joined another touring group known as The Four Strings, which soon disbanded when the violinist, Joe Kennedy Jr., left.[6] He moved to Chicago in 1950 (where he legally changed his name to Ahmad Jamal),[7] and played on and off with local musicians such as saxophonists Von Freeman and Claude McLin, as well as performing solo at the Palm Tavern, occasionally joined by drummer Ike Day.[8]
He made his first sides in 1951 for the Okeh label with The Three Strings (which would later also be called the Ahmad Jamal Trio, although Jamal himself prefers not to use the term "trio"): the other members were guitarist Ray Crawford and a bassist, at different times Eddie Calhoun (1950–52), Richard Davis (1953–54), and Israel Crosby (from 1954). The Three Strings arranged an extended engagement at Chicago's Blue Note, but leapt to fame after performing at the Embers in New York City where John Hammond saw the band play and signed them to Okeh Records. Hammond, a record producer who discovered the talents and enhanced the fame of musicians like Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie, also helped Jamal's trio attract critical acclaim.[7] Jamal subsequently recorded for Parrot (1953–55) and Epic (1955) using the piano-guitar-bass lineup. The trio's sound changed significantly when Crawford was replaced with drummer Vernel Fournier in 1957, and the group worked as the "House Trio" at Chicago's Pershing Hotel. The trio released the live album, Live at the Pershing: But Not For Me, which stayed on the Ten Best-selling charts for 108 weeks. Jamal's well known song "Poinciana" was first released on this album.
Upon his return to the U.S. after a tour of North Africa, the financial success of Live at the Pershing: But Not For Me allowed Jamal to open a restaurant and club called The Alhambra in Chicago.[9] In 1962, The Three Strings disbanded and Jamal moved to New York City, where, at the age of 32, he took a three-year hiatus from his musical career.
In 1964, Jamal resumed touring and recording, this time with the bassist Jamil Nasser and recorded a new album, Extensions, in 1965. Jamal and Nasser continued to play and record together from 1964 to 1972. He also joined forces with Fournier (again, but only for about a year) and drummer Frank Gant (1966–76), among others. He continued to play throughout the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in trios with piano, bass and drums, but he occasionally expanded the group to include guitar. One of his most long-standing gigs was as the band for the New Year's Eve celebrations at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C., from 1979 through the 1990s.[7] Until 1970, he played acoustic piano exclusively. The final album on which he played acoustic piano in the regular sequence was The Awakening. In the 1970s, he played electric piano as well. It was rumored that the Rhodes piano was a gift from someone in Switzerland.
In 1985, Jamal agreed to do an interview and recording session with his fellow jazz pianist, Marian McPartland on her NPR show Piano Jazz. Jamal, who said he rarely plays "But Not For Me" due to its popularity since his 1958 recording, played an improvised version of the tune – though only after noting that he has moved on to making ninety percent of his repertoire his own compositions. He said that when he grew in popularity from the Live at the Pershing album, he was severely criticized afterwards for not playing any of his own compositions.[10]
Now in his eighties, Ahmad Jamal has continued to make numerous tours and recordings. His most recently released albums are Saturday Morning (2013),[11] and the CD/DVD release Ahmad Jamal Featuring Yusef Lateef Live at L'Olympia (2014).

Conversion to Islam[edit]

Born to Baptist parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jamal did not discover Islam until his early 20s. While touring in Detroit (where there was a sizable Muslim community in the 1940s and 1950s), Jamal became interested in Islam and Islamic culture. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950.[7] In an interview with The New York Times a few years later, Jamal said his decision to change his name stemmed from a desire to "re-establish my original name."[12] In 1986, Jamal sued critic Leonard Feather for using his former name in a publication.[13]
After the recording of the best-selling album But Not For Me, Jamal's music grew in popularity throughout the 1950s, and he attracted media coverage for his investment decisions pertaining to his "rising fortune".[14]In 1959, he took a tour of North Africa to explore investment options in Africa. Jamal, who was twenty-nine at the time, said he had a curiosity about the homeland of his ancestors, highly influenced by his conversion to the Muslim faith. He also said his religion had brought him peace of mind about his race, which accounted for his "growth in the field of music that has proved very lucrative for me."[14]
Shortly after his conversion to Islam, Jamal explained to The New York Times that he "says Muslim prayers five times a day and arises in time to say his first prayers at 5 am. He says them in Arabic in keeping with the Muslim tradition."[14]

Music[edit]

Style and influence[edit]

"Ahmad Jamal is one of the great Zen masters of jazz piano. He plays just what is needed and nothing more... every phrase is perfect."
—Tom Moon, NPR musical correspondent[15]
Trained in both traditional jazz ("American classical music", as he prefers to call it)[6] and European classical style, Ahmad Jamal has been praised as one of the greatest jazz innovators over his exceptionally long career. Following bebop greats like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Jamal entered the world of jazz at a time when speed and virtuosic improvisation were central to the success of jazz musicians as artists. Jamal, however, took steps in the direction of a new movement, later coined "cool jazz" – an effort to move jazz in the direction of popular music. He emphasized space and time in his musical compositions and interpretations instead of focusing on the blinding speed of bebop.
Because of this style, Jamal was "often dismissed by jazz writers as no more than a cocktail pianist, a player so given to fluff that his work shouldn't be considered seriously in any artistic sense".[16] Stanley Crouch, author of Considering Genius, offers a very different reaction to Jamal's music, claiming that, like the highly influential Thelonious Monk, Jamal was a true innovator of the jazz tradition and is second in importance in the development of jazz after 1945 only to Parker.[17] His unique musical style stemmed from many individual characteristics, including his use of orchestral effects and his ability to control the beat of songs. These stylistic choices resulted in a unique and new sound for the piano trio: "Through the use of space and changes of rhythm and tempo", writes Crouch, "Jamal invented a group sound that had all the surprise and dynamic variation of an imaginatively ordered big band."[18] Jamal explored the texture of riffs, timbres, and phrases rather than the quantity or speed of notes in any given improvisation. Speaking about Jamal, A. B. Spellman of the National Endowment of the Arts said: "Nobody except Thelonious Monk used space better, and nobody ever applied the artistic device of tension and release better."[19] These (at the time) unconventional techniques that Jamal gleaned from both traditional classical and contemporary jazz musicians helped pave the way for later jazz greats like Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, and McCoy Tyner.[20]
Though Jamal is often overlooked by jazz critics and historians, he is frequently credited with having a great influence on Miles Davis. Davis is quoted as saying that he was impressed by Jamal's rhythmic sense and his "concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement".[21] Jamal characterizes what he thought Davis admired about his music as: "my discipline as opposed to my space."[22]
Jamal and Davis became friends in the 1950s, and Davis continued to support Jamal as a fellow musician, often playing versions of Jamal's own songs ("Ahmad's Blues", "New Rhumba") until he died in 1991.[21]
Jamal, speaking about his own work says, "I like doing ballads. They're hard to play. It takes years of living, really, to read them properly."[10] From an early age, Jamal developed an appreciation for the lyrics of the songs he learned: "I once heard Ben Webster playing his heart out on a ballad. All of a sudden he stopped. I asked him, 'Why did you stop, Ben?' He said, 'I forgot the lyrics.'"[6] Jamal attributes the variety in his musical taste to the fact that he grew up in several eras: the big band era, the bebop years, and the electronic age.[23] He says his style evolved from drawing on the techniques and music produced in these three eras.
In more recent years, Jamal has embraced the electronic influences affecting the genre of jazz. He has also occasionally expanded his usual small ensemble of three to include a tenor saxophone (George Coleman) and a violin (Ray Kennedy). A jazz fan interviewed by Down Beat magazine about Jamal in 2010 described his development as "more aggressive and improvisational these days. The word I used to use is avant garde; that might not be right. Whatever you call it, the way he plays is the essence of what jazz is."[24]
Ted Nash, a longtime member of the Lincoln Center Orchestra, had the opportunity to play with Jamal in 2008 for Jazz at Lincoln Center. Nash described his experience with Jamal's style in an interview with Down Beat magazine: "The way he comped wasn't the generic way that lots of pianists play with chords in the middle of the keyboard, just filling things up. He gave lots of single line responses. He'd come back and throw things out at you, directly from what you played. It was really interesting because it made you stop, and allowed him to respond, and then you felt like playing something else – that's something I don't feel with a lot of piano players. It's really quite engaging. I guess that's another reason people focus in on him. He makes them hone in."[25]

At the Pershing: But Not For Me[edit]

Perhaps Jamal's most famous recording and undoubtedly the one that brought him vast popularity in the late 1950s and into the 1960s jazz age, At the Pershing was recorded at the Pershing Hotel in Chicago in 1958. Jamal played the set with bassist Israel Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier. The set list expressed a diverse collection of tunes, including "The Surrey with the Fringe On Top" from the musical Oklahoma!and Jamal's arrangement of the jazz standard "Poinciana". Jazz musicians and listeners alike found inspiration in the At the Pershing recording, and Jamal's trio was recognized as an integral new building block in the history of jazz. Evident were his unusually minimalist style and his extended vamps,[26] according to reviewer John Morthland. "If you're looking for an argument that pleasurable mainstream art can assume radical status at the same time, Jamal is your guide," said The New York Times contributor Ben Ratliff in a review of the album.[27]

Bands and personnel[edit]

Jamal typically plays with a bassist and drummer: his current[when?] trio is with bassist Reginald Veal and drummer Herlin Riley. He has also performed with percussionist Manolo Badrena.[28] Jamal has recorded with saxophonist George Coleman on the album The Essence; with vibraphonist Gary Burton on In Concert; with the voices of the Howard A. Roberts Chorale on The Bright, the Blue and the Beautiful and Cry Young; with brass, reeds, and strings celebrating his hometown of Pittsburgh; and with The Assai Quartet.
Jamal has played with various jazz musicians throughout his extensive career, including: George Hudson, Ray Crawford, Eddie Calhoun, Richard Davis, Israel Crosby, Vernel Fournier, Jamil Nasser, Frank Gant,James Cammack, Dave Bowler, John Heard, Yoron Israel, Belden Bullock, Manolo Badrena, Gary Burton, and Idris Muhammad, among others.

Legacy[edit]

Clint Eastwood featured two recordings from Jamal's But Not For Me album — "Music, Music, Music" and "Poinciana" — in the 1995 movie The Bridges of Madison County.
De La Soul's song "Stakes Is High" features a sample of Jamal's 1974 version of his song "Swahililand", found on the album Jamal Plays Jamal.
Nas' 1994 hit song "The World Is Yours", produced by Pete Rock, features a very recognizable sample of Jamal's song "I Love Music" from the album The Awakening.
Common's song "Resurrection", produced by No I.D., features a sample from Ahmad's solo on the song "Dolphin Dance", also from the album The Awakening.
Rap group Shadez of Brooklyn's song "Change" features a sample of theme of the title track from The Awakening.
Jamal is the main mentor of jazz piano virtuosa Hiromi Uehara, known as Hiromi.

Awards and honors[edit]

The French government has inducted Ahmad Jamal into the Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, naming him Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in June 2007.
In 1994, Jamal received the National Endowment for the Arts American Jazz Masters award and was also named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University.
Some of Jamal's awards include the following, in chronological order:[11]
  • 1959: Entertainment Award from Pittsburgh Junior Chamber of Commerce
  • 1980: Distinguished Service Award from City of Washington D.C., Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, Smithsonian Institution
  • 1981: Nomination for the Best R&B Instrumental Performance ("You’re Welcome", "Stop on By") from NARAS
  • 1986: Mellon Jazz Festival Salutes Ahmad Jamal in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • 1987: Honorary Membership Philippines Jazz Foundation
  • 2001: Arts & Culture Recognition Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc.
  • 2001: Induction into The Kelly-Strayhorn Gallery of Stars for Achievements as Pianist and Composer from East Liberty Quarter Chamber of Commerce
  • 2003: American Jazz Hall of Fame from New Jersey Jazz Society
  • 2003: Gold Medallion from Steinway & Songs 150 Years Celebration (1853–2003)
  • 2007: Named Living Jazz Legend by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
  • 2011: Induction into Down Beat's 76th Readers' Poll Hall of Fame

Discography[edit]


Ahmad Jamal at Keystone Korner, San Francisco California, 1980 (Photo: Brian McMillen)

As leader[edit]

As sideman[edit]

With Ray Brown

Compilations[edit]

  • 1967: Standard Eyes (Cadet)
  • 1972: Inspiration (Cadet)
  • 1974: Re-evaluations: The Impulse! Years (Impulse!)
  • 1980: The Best of Ahmad Jamal
  • 1998: Ahmad Jamal 1956–66 Recordings
  • 1998: Cross Country Tour 1958–1961

_________________________________________________________________________________

Celebrated pianist-composer Ahmad Jamal continues his performance schedule around the world, as he has for well over the last four decades.  Noted for his outstanding technical command and identifiable sound as a piano stylist, Mr. Jamal was born on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Considering his ensemble "an orchestra", Mr. Jamal not only achieves a unified sound, but subtly inserts independent roles for the bass and drums.  The hallmarks of Mr. Jamal's style are rhythmic innovations, colorful harmonic perceptions, especially left hand harmonic and melodic figures, plus parallel and contrary motion lines in and out of chordal substitutions and alterations and pedal point ostinato interludes in tasteful dynamics.  He also incorporates a unique sense of space in his music, and his musical concepts are exciting without being loud in volume.  Augmented by a selection of unusual standards and his own compositions, Mr. Jamal would notably impress and influence, among others, trumpeter Miles Davis.

In 1994, Mr. Jamal received the American Jazz Masters fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The same year he was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University, where he performed commissioned works with the Assai String Quartet. 

In 2007 the French Government inducted Mr. Jamal into the prestigious Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, naming him Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.   

Mr. Jamal’s previous recording A Quiet Time (Dreyfus Records), released in January 2010, was the number #1 CD on jazz radio for the year 2010 and continues to soar.  Also this year the French Jazz Academy has voted "The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-1962" released by Mosaïc "Best reissue of the year with outstanding research work".  His music remains, youthful, fresh, imaginative and always influential.  
 
In December of 2011 Mr. Jamal was awarded with DownBeat’s 76th Reader’s Poll Hall of Fame.  
Mr. Jamal’s latest album Blue Moon which debuted in February opened to a sold out performance at Theatre du Chatelet in Paris.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Ahmad Jamal (b. Frederick Russell Jones, July 2, 1930), an American jazz pianist, composer, group leader, and educator. For five decades, he has been one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz.

Ahmad Jamal was born on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano. Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he describes as greatly influencing him. His Pittsburgh roots remained an important part of his identity ("Pittsburgh meant everything to me and it still does," he said in 2001) and it was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. Jamal also studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen, at which point he was recognized as a "coming great" by the pianist Art Tatum. 
Born to Baptist parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jamal did not discover Islam until his early 20s. While touring in Detroit (where there was a sizable Muslim community in the 1940s and 1950s), Jamal became interested in Islam and Islamic culture. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950. In an interview with The New York Times a few years later, Jamal said his decision to change his name stemmed from a desire to "re-establish my original name." In 1986, Jamal sued critic Leonard Feather for using his former name in a publication.

After the recording of the best-selling album But Not For Me, Jamal's music grew in popularity throughout the 1950s. In 1959, he took a tour of North Africa to explore investment options in Africa. Jamal, who was twenty-nine at the time, said he had a curiosity about the homeland of his ancestors, highly influenced by his conversion to the Muslim faith. He also said his religion had brought him peace of mind about his race, which accounted for his "growth in the field of music that has proved very lucrative for me."
Upon his return to the United States after a tour of North Africa, the financial success of Live at the Pershing: But Not For Me allowed Jamal to open a restaurant and club called The Alhambra in Chicago. In 1962, The Three Strings disbanded and Jamal moved to New York City, where, at the age of 32, he took a three-year hiatus from his musical career.

In 1964, Jamal resumed touring and recording, this time with the bassist Jamil Nasser and recorded a new album, Extensions, in 1965. Jamal and Nasser continued to play and record together from 1964 to 1972. He also joined forces with Vernel Fournier (again, but only for about a year) and drummer Frank Gant (1966–76), among others. He continued to play throughout the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in trios with piano, bass and drums, but he occasionally expanded the group to include guitar. One of his most long-standing gigs was as the band for the New Year's Eve celebrations at Blues Alley in Washington, D. C., from 1979 through the 1990s. Until 1970, he played acoustic piano exclusively. The final album on which he played acoustic piano in the regular sequence was The Awakening. In the 1970s, Jamal played electric piano as well. It was rumored that the Rhodes piano was a gift from someone in Switzerland.

In 1985, Jamal agreed to do an interview and recording session with his fellow jazz pianist, Marian McPartland on her NPR show Piano Jazz. Jamal, who said he rarely plays "But Not For Me" due to its popularity since his 1958 recording, played an improvised version of the tune – though only after noting that he has moved on to making ninety percent of his repertoire his own compositions. He said that when he grew in popularity from the Live at the Pershing album, he was severely criticized afterwards for not playing any of his own compositions.

In 1994, Mr. Jamal received the American Jazz Masters fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The same year he was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University, where he performed commissioned works with the Assai String Quartet. 

In 2007 the French Government inducted Mr. Jamal into the prestigious Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, naming him Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.   

Mr. Jamal’s previous recording A Quiet Time (Dreyfus Records), released in January 2010, was the number #1 CD on jazz radio for the year 2010 and continues to soar.  Also this year the French Jazz Academy has voted "The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-1962" released by Mosaïc "Best reissue of the year with outstanding research work".  His music remains, youthful, fresh, imaginative and always influential.  
 
In December of 2011 Mr. Jamal was awarded with DownBeat’s 76th Reader’s Poll Hall of Fame.  



_______________________________________________________________________________

Noted for his outstanding technical command and identifiable sound as a piano stylist, Mr. Jamal was born on July 2, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A child prodigy who began to play the piano at the age of 3, he began formal studies at 7.
While in high school, he completed the equivalent of college master classes under the noted African-American concert singer and teacher Mary Cardwell Dawson and pianist James Miller. He joined the musicians union at the age of 14, and he began touring upon graduation from Westinghouse High School at the age of 17, drawing critical acclaim for his solos. In 1951, he formed his first trio, The Three Strings. Performing at New York's The Embers club, Record Producer John Hammond "discovered" The Three Strings and signed them to Okeh Records (a division of Columbia, now Sony, Records).
Considering his trio "an orchestra," Mr. Jamal not only achieves a unified sound, but subtly inserts independent roles for the bass and drums. The hallmarks of Mr. Jamal's style are rhythmic innovations, colorful harmonic perceptions, especially left hand harmonic and melodic figures, plus parallel and contrary motion lines in and out of chordal substitutions and alterations and pedalpoint ostinato interludes in tasteful dynamics.


He also incorporates a unique sense of space in his music, and his musical concepts are exciting without being loud in volume. Augmented by a selection of unusual standards and his own compositions, Mr. Jamal would notably impress and influence, among others, trumpeter Miles Davis.
In 1956, Mr. Jamal, who had already been joined by bassist Israel Crosby in 1955, replaced guitarist Ray Crawford with a drummer. Working as the "house trio" at Chicago's Pershing Hotel, in 1958, drummer Vernell Fournier joined this trio and Mr. Jamal made a "live" album for Argo (Chess) Records entitled But Not For Me. The resulting hit single and album, that also included Poinciana - his rendition, now Mr. Jamal's "trademark," remained on the Ten Best-selling charts - amazingly for a jazz album - an unprecedented 108 weeks! This financial success enabled Mr. Jamal to realize a dream, and he opened a restaurant/club, The Alhambra, in Chicago. Here the Trio was able to perform while limiting their touring schedule.
In 1951, Mr. Jamal first recorded Ahmad's Blues on Okeh Records. His arrangement of the folk tune Billy Boy, and Poinciana (not his original composition), also stem from this period. In 1955, he recorded his first Argo (Chess) Records album that included New Rhumba, Excerpts From The Blues, Medley (actually I Don't Want To Be Kissed), and It Ain't Necessarily So, - all later utilized by Miles Davis and Gil Evans on the albums Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess.

In 1994, Mr. Jamal received the American Jazz Masters fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The same year he was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University, where he performed commissioned works with the Assai String Quartet.
In 2007 the French Government inducted Mr. Jamal into the prestigious Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, naming him Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Mr. Jamal's previous recording A Quiet Time (Dreyfus Records), released in January 2010, was the number #1 CD on jazz radio for the year 2010 and continues to soar. Also this year the French Jazz Academy has voted "The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-1962" released by Mosaïc "Best reissue of the year with outstanding research work". His music remains, youthful, fresh, imaginative and always influential.
In December of 2011 Mr. Jamal was awarded with DownBeat's 76th Reader's Poll Hall of Fame.
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Sunday, November 22, 2015

A00055 - Gaafar Nimeiry, Sudanese Leader


Gaafar al-Nimeiry, a Sudan Leader With Shifting Politics, Dies at 79

By 

Gaafar al-Nimeiry, an army colonel who took over Sudan in a 1969 coup and, by taking a constantly swerving political course, held on to the presidency until a bloodless coup ousted him in 1985, died in Sudan on May 30. He was 79.
The death was announced by SUNA, the state news agency, which did not give a cause.
In his 16-year tenure, President Nimeiry veered from ardent Arab nationalism to socialism, from friendly relations with the Soviet Union to a pro-Western stance and a close alliance with the United States. Although he was often seen as one of the more moderate Arab leaders, he was not averse to violent crackdowns and even mass executions of opponents. He survived four attempted coups in his first nine years in power.
Colonel Nimeiry led a small group, calling itself the Free Officers, that seized power on May 25, 1969. Their cause, they said, was Arab nationalism and revolutionary socialism patterned after the ideology of President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. At the time of the coup, the southern region of Sudan — home to black Christians and animists who felt oppressed by the Muslim-dominated government — had been plagued by rebellion for 14 years.



Gaafar al-Nimeiry Camera Press

Step by step over the next eight years, President Nimeiry tried to draw together the diverse elements of his country: the Christians and animists in the south, hard-line Muslims and die-hard Communists. He met resistance from extremists on the left and the right.
In 1971, Mr. Nimeiry survived a Communist-instigated coup during which he was imprisoned for three days. He escaped by jumping out a window as loyalist forces arrived. After that coup attempt, he started turning Sudan away from Soviet influence and toward an alliance with conservative Arab governments like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. His government also became more pro-Western and began receiving armaments from the United States.
Then, in March 1972, he signed a peace agreement with the rebels in the south, granting regional autonomy to the southern provinces. His unification efforts were lauded in the West. He was the only Arab leader to support President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt after Mr. Sadat signed the Camp David peace accords with Israel in 1978.
By then, the United States viewed Mr. Nimeiry as a counterweight to the Marxist government in Ethiopia, on Sudan’s eastern border, and to Col.Muammar el-Qaddafi’s hostile government in Libya, to the northwest. In 1976, during a Libyan-backed coup attempt, President Nimeiry avoided capture when his plane arriving from Europe landed ahead of schedule because of a tailwind. When 98 people implicated in the plot were executed, Mr. Nimeiry drew worldwide criticism.
He became increasingly dictatorial. In 1983, seeking support from Muslim extremists, he imposed Islamic law on all of Sudan. In violation of the 1972 peace accord with the rebels, he dissolved the southern regional government. That reignited a conflict that continues to this day.
Soaring food and fuel prices led to mass demonstrations and a general strike in 1985, prompting Sudan’s military to oust Mr. Nimeiry. He remained in exile in Egypt for 14 years. In 1999, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir allowed him to return to Sudan.
Gaafar Mohammed al-Nimeiry was born Jan. 1, 1930, in Omdurman, opposite Khartoum on the banks of the Nile, when his country was still under the joint rule of Britain and Egypt. (It became independent in 1956.) His father was a messenger for a British company. He is survived by his wife, according to the Sudanese state news agency.
Mr. Nimeiry’s official biography says he was rebellious even as a teenager: When Britain delayed granting Sudan self-determination, he led a strike that kept his secondary school closed for seven months.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Gaafar Muhammad an-Nimeiry (otherwise spelled in English as Jaafar Nimeiry, Gaafar Nimeiry or Ga'far Muhammad Numayri; Arabic: جعفر محمد نميري‎; 1 January 1930 – 30 May 2009[2]) was the President of Sudan from 1969 to 1985.
A military officer, he came to power after a military coup in 1969. With his party, the Sudanese Socialist Union, he initially pursued socialist and Pan-Arabist policies. In 1972 he signed the Addis Ababa Agreement, ending the First Sudanese Civil War. He later became an ally of the United States.[2] In the late 1970s he moved towardsIslamism, and in 1983 he imposed Sharia law throughout the country, precipitating the Second Sudanese Civil War. He was ousted from power in 1985 and went into exile in Egypt. He returned in 1999 and ran in the Presidential elections in 2000, but did poorly.

Early life and education[edit]

He was born in Cairo in Egypt, at a time when Sudan was ruled by Egypt and Great Britain. He is son of Egyptian politician Muhammad Ali Nimery and a Sudanese woman.[2] He was the son of a postman and the great grandson of a local tribal monarch from the Wad Nimeiry region in Dongola, in the Northern State.
He studied at the prestigious Hantoub School, a British style secondary boarding school for the elite.[3] In an incident in 1948, when protesting against British rule in Sudan by leading students to strike in his school, he was temporarily expelled.
In 1952 Nimeiry graduated from the Sudan Military College, where he was greatly influenced by the ideas of Gamal Abdel Nasser's Free Officers Movement, which gained power in Egypt that same year. Later he joined the Khartoum garrison.
In 1966, Nimeiry graduated from the United States Army Command College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, USA.[4]

1969–1980[edit]

First term as Prime Minister[edit]

In 1969, together with four other officers Colonel Nimeiry overthrew the civilian government of Ismail al-Azhari. His coup was named the "May Revolution" and he became prime minister and chairman of theRevolutionary Command Council (RCC). He started a campaign aimed at reforming Sudan's economy through nationalization of banks and industries as well as some land reforms. He used his position to enact a number of socialist and Pan-Arabist reforms.

Nimeiry, Nasser and Gaddafi in Tripoli, 1969.
In 1970 Nimeiry ordered an aerial bombardment on Aba Island which killed several thousand Ansar, members of the Umma Party which opposed him.[5]
Later in 1971 he was elected President winning a referendum with 98.6 per cent of the votes. He then dissolved the RCC and founded the Sudanese Socialist Union[4] which he declared to be the only legal political organization.[5] In 1972 he signed the Addis Ababa Agreement whereby autonomy was granted to the non-Muslim southern region of Sudan, which ended the First Sudanese Civil War and ushered in an 11-year period of peace and stability to the region. In 1973 he drafted a new constitution which declared Sudan to be a democratic, socialist state and gave considerable power to the office of President.[5]
In the mid-1970s he launched several initiatives to develop agriculture and industry in Sudan and he invited foreign companies to explore for oil.[5] (Chevron would discover oil reserves in South-Central Sudan in 1979.) In general he began a more Western-friendly policy, where banks were returned to private ownership and foreign investment was encouraged, as evidenced by a number of bilateral investment treaties: with the Netherlands August 22, 1970, Switzerland February 17, 1974, Egypt May 28, 1977, andFrance July 31, 1978. In July 1978 at the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in Khartoum, Nimeiry was elected Chairman of the OAU until July 1979.

Coup attempts[edit]

Nimeiry successfully weathered a coup attempt by Sadiq al-Mahdi (a religious figure, Prime Minister 1966-67 and leader of the Islamic Umma Party) in 1970, and in 1971 was briefly removed from power by a Communist coup, before being restored. During the Communist coup, Nimeiry jumped out of the window of the place where he was incarcerated when his supporters came to the rescue.[2] After this coup, he started to move away from Soviet influence and began to receive arms from the U.S.[2] When he started moving towards the influence of US. He also appointed the late Abdelrahim Mahmoud as governor of the Central State. He played a major role in The Jazeera Scheme. Which was the agriculture project that supported the economy of the Sudan. and started many expeditions. After the government was over thrown Mr. Mahmoud started managing a local pepsi factory. Mr. Mahmoud died on March 6, 2011. He has surviving family.
In late 1975, a military coup by Communist members of the armed forces, led by Brigadier Hassan Hussein Osman, failed to remove Nimeiry from power. General Elbagir, Nimeiry's deputy, led a counter coup that brought Nimeiry back within few hours. Brigadier Osman was wounded and later court martialed and executed.
In 1976, a force of one thousand insurgents under Sadiq al Mahdi, armed and trained by Libya, crossed the border from Ma'tan as-Sarra. After passing through Darfur and Kordofan, the insurgents engaged in three days of house-to-house fighting in Khartoum and Omdurman that killed some 3000 people and sparked national resentment against the Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. Nimeiry and his government were narrowly saved after a column of army tanks entered the city.[6] Ninety-eight people implicated in the plot were executed.[2]

National Reconciliation[edit]

In 1977 a National Reconciliation took place between Sadiq al Mahdi, the leader of the opposition who was based abroad, and Nimeiry. A limited measure of pluralism was allowed and Sadiq al Mahdi and members of the Democratic Unionist Party (Sudan) joined the legislature under the umbrella of the Sudan Socialist Union. Hassan al-Turabi, an Islamist leader who had been imprisoned and then exiled after the May Revolution, was invited back and became Justice Minister and Attorney General in 1979. Relations between Khartoum and the South Sudan leadership worsened after the National Reconciliation and the National Reconciliation itself came to a premature end in light of disagreements between the opposition and Nimeiry.

1980–1985[edit]

Second term as President[edit]


Nimeiry arriving for a state visit in the US, 1983
Nimeiry was one of only two Arab leaders (the other being Qaboos of Oman) who maintained close relations with Anwar Sadat after the Camp David Accords of 1978. He attended Sadat's funeral in 1981.
In 1981 Nimeiry, pressured by his Islamic opponents, and still President of Sudan, began a dramatic shift toward Islamist political governance and allied himself with theMuslim Brotherhood. In 1983, he imposed Sharia, or Islamic law, throughout the country — alienating the predominantly Christian and animist south. The administrative boundaries of the south were also reformed. In violation of the Addis Ababa Agreement he dissolved the southern Sudanese government, thereby prompting a renewal of the civil war, the Second Sudanese Civil War. In 1984 he declared a state of emergency, giving special powers to the military.[4]
In 1985 Nimeiry authorised the execution of the peaceful yet controversial political dissident and Islamic reformist Mahmoud Mohamed Taha after Taha — who was first accused of religious sedition in the 1960s when Sudan's President was Ismail al-Azhari — had been declared an apostate by a Sudanese court. Shortly thereafter on 6 April 1985, while Nimeiry was on an official visit to the United States of America in the hope of gaining more financial aid from Washington, a bloodless military coup led by his defense minister Gen. Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab ousted him from power. At the subsequent elections the pro-Islamist leader, Sadiq al-Mahdi (who had attempted a coup against Nimeiry in 1976) became Prime Minister.

Hyperinflation[edit]

During 1980–85, the Sudanese Pound lost 80 percent of its worth due to hyperinflation and renewed civil war.

Exile and return[edit]

Nimeiry lived in exile in Egypt from 1985 to 1999, in a villa situated in Heliopolis, Cairo. He returned to Sudan in May 1999 to a rapturous welcome that surprised many of his detractors. The next year, he ran in the presidential election against incumbent president Omar al-Bashir, but did poorly, obtaining only 9.6% of the votes in elections that were boycotted by the Sudanese opposition and alleged to be rigged. In 2005, Nimeiry's party, the Alliance of the Peoples' Working Forces signed a merger agreement with the ruling National Congress Party of Sudan. The National Congress Party negotiated an end to Sudan's civil war that was signed in a Comprehensive Peace Agreement on January 9, 2005.
Nimeiry died of natural causes in his home in Omdurman on 30 May 2009. Tens of thousands turned up to his official funeral including members of Sudan's political forces that had opposed his rule. After Nimeiry's death in May 2009, former Revolutionary Command Council member Khaled Hassan Abbass was elected head of the Alliance of Peoples' Working Forces. Splits occurred amongst the supporters of Nimeiry with some endorsing the partnership with the National Congress Party and others alleging that the National Congress Party reneged on the merger agreement and did not properly implement it. The splinter groups formed the May Socialist Union which took part in the parliamentary elections in Sudan in 2010. Another group led by Professor Dr. Fatima Abdel Mahmoud set up The Sudanese Socialist Democratic Union Party as the successor party of the Sudanese Socialist Union. Professor Dr. Fatima Abdel Mahmoud, was the first woman cabinet Minister in Sudan in the 1970s, and the first Sudanese woman to contest the Presidency in the Sudanese general election, 2010.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Gaafar Mohamed el-Nimeiri, also spelled Jaʿfar Muḥammad al-Numayrī, Nimeiri also spelled Nimeiry, Nemery, or Numeyri   (born January 1, 1930, Wad Nubawi,Omdurman, Sudan—died May 30, 2009, Omdurman), major general, commander of the armed forces, and president of Sudan (1971–85).
After graduating from the Sudan Military College in 1952, Nimeiri acted as commander of the Khartoum garrison and led campaigns against rebels in southern Sudan. He joined in a number of attempts to overthrow the Sudanesegovernment. In 1966 he graduated from the U.S. Army Command College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Three years later he overthrew the civilian regime ofIsmāʿīl al-Azharī and was promoted to major general. He became prime minister and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). He put down a right-wing revolt led by Sayyid Ṣādiq al-Mahdī in March 1970 but was briefly overthrown by a communist coup in July 1971. In September 1971 he was elected president in a plebiscite with 98.6 percent of the vote.
Upon his election as president, Nimeiri dissolved the RCC and established in 1972 the Sudanese Socialist Union, a political party of which he also became president. He was credited with bringing about negotiations that led to a settlement of a long-running conflict with the southern Sudan region, to which he granted autonomy in 1972.
When Nimeiri assumed power, he first pursued a socialist economic policy but soon shifted course in favour of capitalist agriculture, designed to make Sudan a major food producer. In March 1981 he inaugurated the Kinānah sugar project, one of the largest sugar refineries in the world. His efforts were hampered, however, by a succession of economic crises brought on in part by overly ambitious development plans, and his reign was punctuated by many attempted coups.
Nimeiri became the first Muslim leader to back the efforts of Egyptian Pres. Anwar el-Sādāt to establish peace with Israel. As president of the Organization of African Unity (OAU; now the African Union) in 1978, Nimeiri reasserted his position that Africa should keep free from entanglements of “alignment” with external powers.
His attempts to promulgate measures of Islamic law (Sharīʿah) in Sudan alienated many in the predominantly Christian southern region, as did his abrogation of the 1972 agreement that had granted southern Sudan autonomy. These factors helped to fuel the resumption of war with southern Sudan (now South Sudan) in 1983.
In April 1985, while he was in the United States, Nimeiri was overthrown by his defense minister in a bloodless coup. He sought refuge in Egypt, where he spent 14 years in exile. After his return to Sudan in 1999, he was not actively involved in Sudanese politics.
_________________________________________________________________________
Gaafar Mohamed el-Nimeiri, also spelled Jaʿfar Muḥammad al-Numayrī, Nimeiri also spelled Nimeiry, Nemery, or Numeyri   (b. January 1, 1930, Wad Nubawi, Omdurman, Sudan— d. May 30, 2009, Omdurman, Sudan), major general, commander of the armed forces, and president of Sudan (1971–85).
After graduating from the Sudan Military College in 1952, Nimeiry acted as commander of the Khartoum garrison and led campaigns against rebels in southern Sudan. He joined in a number of attempts to overthrow the Sudanese government. In 1966 he graduated from the United States Army Command College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Three years later he overthrew the civilian regime of Isma'il al-Azhari and was promoted to major general. He became prime minister and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC).  He put down a right-wing revolt led by Sayyid Ṣādiq al-Mahdī in March 1970 but was briefly overthrown by a communist coup in July 1971. In September 1971, he was elected president in a plebiscite with 98.6 percent of the vote.
Upon his election as president, Nimeiry dissolved the RCC and established in 1972 the Sudanese Socialist Union, a political party of which he also became president. He was credited with bringing about negotiations that led to a settlement of a long-running conflict with the southern Sudan region, to which he granted autonomy in 1972.
When Nimeiry assumed power, he first pursued a socialist economic policy but soon shifted course in favor of capitalist agriculture, designed to make Sudan a major food producer. In March 1981 he inaugurated the Kinānah sugar project, one of the largest sugar refineries in the world. His efforts were hampered, however, by a succession of economic crises brought on in part by overly ambitious development plans, and his reign was punctuated by many attempted coups.
Nimeiry became the first Muslim leader to back the efforts of Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat to establish peace with Israel. As president of the Organization of African Unity (OAU; now the African Union) in 1978, Nimeiri reasserted his position that Africa should keep free from entanglements of “alignment” with external powers.
His attempts to promulgate measures of Islamic law (Shari'ah) in Sudan alienated many in the predominantly Christian southern region, as did his abrogation of the 1972 agreement that had granted southern Sudan autonomy. These factors helped to fuel the resumption of war with southern Sudan (now South Sudan) in 1983.
In April 1985, while he was in the United States, Nimeiry was overthrown by his defense minister in a bloodless coup. He sought refuge in Egypt, where he spent 14 years in exile. After his return to Sudan in 1999, he was not actively involved in Sudanese politics.
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