Jamal was born on July 2, 1930, and began playing piano at the age of three. He eventually received lessons from Mary Cardwell Dawson, who started the first African-American opera company which was based out of Pittsburgh. Jamal attended Westinghouse High School and played piano in the “K-Dets,” one of the first high school jazz orchestras. When he was fourteen, Jamal joined the Pittsburgh Musicians Union and began (illegally) performing in Pittsburgh Jazz clubs, where he got the opportunity to perform with Art Tatum, who he would later cite as one of his major influences.

After he graduated from Westinghouse, Jamal joined the George Hudson band in 1947 and left Pittsburgh. In 1949 he became the pianist for Joe Kennedy's group Four Strings. He formed his own trio Three Strings in 1950-52, which debuted at Chicago's Blue Note club, and later became the Ahmad Jamal Trio, featuring bassist Israel Crosby and guitarist Ray Crawford. In 1952 Jamal was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall for Duke Ellington’s 25th Anniversary. He shared the bill with Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stan Getz.

His big break came in 1958 when his album At the Pershing became a surprising smash hit, selling a million copies and staying on the Billboard charts for 108 weeks. His performance of "Poinciana" on the albums, a 1930s jazz standard, has become the definitive recording of the song. With the popularity of the album and the advocacy of Miles Davis, Jamal's trio was one of the most popular jazz acts in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

While Jamal continued to record and tour the world throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, he never forgot his hometown. In 1989 he released an album called simply Pittsburgh which he described as, “a tribute to my beloved hometown.” Jamal’s music took on a curious revival in the 1990s and the 2000s when his performances were sampled hundreds of times by hip hop artists, including on albums by The Game, De La Soul, Nas, Jay-Z, and Common.

Jamal released his last album, the solo and duo album Ballades, in 2019. He passed away on April 16, 2023.