After 42 years of serving the Pittsburgh community, since its inception in 1982, and with the growth of their various program offerings, AAMI is looking forward to having a performance hall that will accommodate a growing number of attendees. This hall is a need for the increasing community in Pittsburgh, and will host a plethora of performances, ranging from recitals to events with large audiences.

Additionally, AAMI can begin to plan for programming that will highlight the various styles of music throughout the African diaspora including Jazz, Blues, Spirituals, Folk Music, Art Music, African, Caribbean, and more.

The hall will be named after one of Pittsburgh’s legendary jazz musicians Ahmad Jamal, who grew up and attended school in the very same neighborhood where AAMI is located. As a child he first studied piano at an earlier legendary school in the same community, the Dawson School of Music and he has personally visited the AAMI in one of its previous buildings. The Johnson Family developed a close relation with Jamal after he hired our son James T Johnson, III, to play drums for him during the nineties at the recommendation of Dr Nelson Harrison.

We are happy to have had the opportunity to share with Ahmad Jamal our intentions to name our music performance hall after him and he was very pleased and honored with that information.