NEWS

In Memoriam: Rashied Ali

by Rick Mattingly

Jazz drummer Rashied Ali, best known for his work with saxophonist John Coltrane, died on August 12 at age seventy-six after suffering a heart attack.

Ali described his drumming as "multidirectional rhythms/polytonal percussion," a style in which the drummer "interfaces both rhythmically and melodically with the music…coloring both the rhythm and tonality with his personal perception." In 1992 he told MD that he grew up playing bebop. "Max Roach and Philly Joe Jones–those were my first jazz heroes," he said. "Later on down the line it was Elvin Jones. Max put me onto the melodic approach to the drumset, which is very evident in my playing today. He put me into knowing what the time was about, knowing exactly what we were all playing instead of just trying to keep the time for somebody. Playing the song, unison lines with the horn players–I got that from listening to Max."

Born in Philadelphia in 1933 as Robert Patterson, Ali studied piano, voice, and conga drums in his youth. During his three years in the army, which he joined when he was sixteen by pretending to be older, he studied percussion and began playing drumset. After returning to Philadelphia, he worked with a variety of rhythm and blues bands as well as with such jazz musicians as McCoy Tyner, the Heath Brothers, Lee Morgan, Don Patterson, and Jimmy Smith. After moving to New York City in 1963, Ali became active within the avant-garde jazz scene, working with Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Paul Bley, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler (where he and Sunny Murray played drums together for a spell), and Archie Shepp, with whom he made his first significant recording, On This Night.

In November 1965, John Coltrane invited Ali to join his group, playing drums alongside Elvin Jones. Rashied debuted with the band at New York City's Village Gate and then appeared with Jones on Coltrane's 1965 album Meditations. Jones left Coltrane's group soon after that, as did pianist McCoy Tyner. Ali remained–along with pianist Alice Coltrane, second saxophonist Sanders, and bassist Jimmy Garrison–until Coltrane's death in 1967. The drummer appeared on the Coltrane albums Cosmic Music, Live At The Village Vanguard Again, Concert In Japan, and Interstellar Space, the latter of which consists of only Coltrane and Ali.

"Trane really summed it up good for me," Ali told MD. "He said he felt like he could go in any direction he wanted to, and it would be compatible with what I was doing on the drumset. In other words, he could play as slow as he wanted or as fast as he wanted or whatever he wanted to do, and I could adjust to playing with him without keeping straight time. And that's what I’m still doing now. It's my style of playing. I can just go right from scratch and don't have to come anywhere near playing a time value."

After Coltrane died, Ali moved to Europe and played with Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson and John Tchicai in Copenhagen and with Jon Hendricks in London before forming his own free-jazz trio with John Surman and Dave Holland. After returning to New York, Rashied led a group and also worked with Alice Coltrane (appearing on her 1970 album Journey In Satchidananda), Sonny Rollins, and Jackie McLean. During the mid-1970s, Ali, Milford Graves, and Andrew Cyrille performed a series of concerts together called Dialogue Of The Drums.

In 1972 Ali helped organize the New York Jazz Musicians' Festival, which was formed in protest of the fact that the Newport Jazz Festival was coming to New York but not using many New York musicians. The drummer was also active in a movement among jazz musicians to take better control over their careers and become economically self-sufficient. Toward that goal, he formed a record label, Survival Records, which released his solo albums New Directions In Modern Music and Moon Flight. In 1974 he opened a New York City club and restaurant called Ali's Alley, which ran through 1979.

In the '80s Ali performed with a wide variety of artists, including the groups Afro Algonquin, the Funkyfreeboppers, and Phalanx (featuring guitarist James "Blood" Ulmer), and with bands led by Jaco Pastorius, Billy Bang, Sonny Fortune, Odean Pope, and Calvin Hill. One of his more surprising gigs was with Hot Tuna, the group formed by former Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Cassady. "That was a gig that put me onto playing country-type rock 'n' roll, but still being able to have fun with it," Rashied said. "I wasn't taking anything away from my playing in order to do the gig. I was playing as out as I could with that stuff. It was a backbeat gig, but I embellished on the backbeat to the point where I could make it work. It was a fun band."

In the '90s Ali led his own groups, including one called By Any Means, and he also played with the band Prima Materia. During the final years of his life, he primarily played with the Rashied Ali Quintet, which released the CDs Judgment Day, Vol. 1 and Judgment Day, Vol. 2 in 2006. He also played duo concerts with bassist/violinist Henry Grimes, with whom he recorded Going To The Ritual in 2007.


Print Subscription (includes Digital Free)
Digital only Subscription