Rashied Ali

Rashied Ali (born Robert Patterson on 1 July 1935 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz drummer best known for playing with John Coltrane in the last years of Coltrane's life.

Biography

Rashied Ali was born into a musical family; his mother had sung with Jimmie Lunceford. [cite book | last=Wilmer|first=Valerie | title=As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz | publisher=Quartet | year=1977|pages=259] His brother, Muhammad Ali, is also a drummer, who played with Albert Ayler, among others.

Ali moved to New York in 1963 and worked in groups with Bill Dixon and Paul Bley. [cite book | last=Wilmer|first=Valerie | title=As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz | publisher=Quartet | year=1977|pages=171] He has also recorded or performed with Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Arthur Rhames, James Blood Ulmer and many others. In addition, Ali was scheduled to be the second drummer, alongside Elvin Jones, on John Coltrane's landmark free jazz album, Ascension, but he dropped out just before the recording was to take place. Coltrane did not replace him, and settled for one drummer. Ali began to record with Coltrane from Meditations in November 1965 onwards.

Among his credits is the last recorded work of John Coltrane's life, the "Olatunji Concert" and "Interstellar Space" an album of duets with Coltrane, recorded earlier in 1967. Ali "became important in stimulating the most avant-garde kinds of jazz activities". [cite book | author=Litweiler, John | title=The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958 | publisher=Da Capo | year=1984|id=ISBN 0-306-80377-1|pages=104] During the early 1970s, he ran an influential loft club in New York, called "Ali's Alley". [Citation| last = Hazell | first = Ed | title=Episodes | publisher = Ayler Records | year =2003 | location =Boston] Ali also briefly formed a non-jazz project called Purple Trap with Japanese experimental guitarist Keiji Haino and jazz-fusion bassist Bill Laswell. Their double-CD album, "Decided...Already the Motionless Heart of Tranquility, Tangling the Prayer Called "I", was released on John Zorn's Tzadik label in March of 1999.

Rashied Ali though most known for his work in the Jazz idiom has also made his contributions to other experimental art forms including multi-media Performances with The Gift of Eagle Orchestra and Cosmiclegends.Performances such as Devachan and the Monads, Dwarf of Oblivion which have taken place at the Kitchen center for performance Art, and a special tribute to John Cage in Central Park have taken 'Performance Art' to new levels with the addition of fully improvised large scale performances pieces. Other artists of the orchestra and Cosmic Legends have included Hayes Greenfield (sax), Perry Robinson (clarinet), Wayne Lopes (guitar), Dave Douglas (trumpet), Gloria Tropp (vocals), director/pianist Sylvie Degiez along with Poets and actors, Ira Cohen, Taylor Meade, Judith Malina (Living Theater). More recently, Ali has played with Sonny Fortune.

Rashied Ali has recently been playing with his own Quintet, The Rashied Ali Quintet. A double CD entitled "Judgement Day" was released on February 17, 2005 and features: Jumaane Smith on Trumpet, Lawrence Clark on Tenor Sax, Greg Murphy on Piano, Joris Teepe on Bass and Rashied Ali on Drums. This album was recored at Ali's own Survival Studio which has been running since the 1970's.