Rashad Ali

First off I would like to take a moment to memorialize a great musician who passed away last week. Rashied Ali was 74 when he passed away apparently from a heart attack during heart surgeory. Most people will go about their lives not knowing who Ali was and what he did, which is sadly a very common thing to happen to jazz musicians.

Rashied Ali was most famous for replacing Elvin Jones in John Coltrane's band. Ali was one of many musicians in the avant-garde movement that Trane took under his belt and gave opportunities to play. According the the book: The House That Trane Built, author Ashley Kahn writes: "Coltrane had been reluctant in 1964 to accept a leading role in any musical movement, but Acension roared like a cacophonous acceptance speech. As welcoming as he was to new talent on that album, so his club and concert gigs in 1965 opened the door to a retinue of young improvisors who joined him onstage, including two future band members, drummer Rashied Ali and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders."

He was known as a power house of stamina at the drum set. He had the reputation to play for extended periods of time. Ethan Iverson writes on his blog Do the Math he once saw Ali play a gig and only one tune was played, Cherokee, for 60 straight minutes with out stopping.

Ali was never in my opinion ever considered even close to Elvin Jones by musicians my generation. Its simple: he was barely ever talked about. I think in college 90% of my collegues didn't even know who he was. The albums he played on are classics but they couldn't help but be over shadowed by Coltrane's classically classic albums like A Love Supreme, Coltrane, Live at the Village Vanguard, Giant Steps and Crescent. Those albums except Giant Steps had Elvin in the drum seat and those are the albums everyone talks about. After 1964 Coltrane's music became more about emotion than swing and it seemed fitting to have Ali at the drums. Ali's style fit that music so well. I once heard that at a time Coltrane was employing Jones and Ali at the same time and Jones got sick of playing with a second drummer and left the band.

His work on the albums Live at the Village Vanguard...Again! Stellar Regions and of course Interstellar Space helped create a whole new way of playing drums....not so much as a time keeper but a expressive voice within a band's sound.

Rashied Ali 1935-2009