This Week in the Mercury

Film

Bucking Labels

Buck Angel Highlights This Year's QDoc

Feature

Adventure Time

Fantasy—Once the Realm of the Nerdiest of Nerds—Is Going Mainstream.

Archives

RSS Feed

Twitter

End Hits Tip?

End Hits

« DJ Doug Martsch | It's True. The New Smashing Pumpkin… »

Monday, August 17, 2009

News RIP: Rashied Ali

Posted by Andrew R Tonry on Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:26 PM

When it comes to free jazz, my understanding may not even hit the equivalent pre-school level. But there are times when it hits me, as when some years ago a friend popped on a Rashied Ali record. Ali, who played separately with both John and Alice Coltrane, along with a number of his own groups, died last Wednesday. He was 76.

From the NY Times obituary:

“I didn’t know what it was, but he called it multidirectional rhythms,” Mr. Ali said of his drumming in an interview for the documentary “The World According to John Coltrane” (1990). On Mr. Ali’s Web site, rashiedali.org, Rashid Ali's Web site his playing is described as “a multirhythmic, polytonal propellant, helping fuel Coltrane’s flights of free-jazz fancy....

“He could play straight, put down the time and swing,” the critic Stanley Crouch said. “He had a good command of his instrument. He once told me that he thought of himself as playing in 4/4, but the other realms of 4/4 that we don’t usually hear.”

A sampling:

"Leo" w/ John Coltrane, live in 1966: