Sweet Freedom



Ringers: Rashied Ali (right) and Louie Belogenis collaborated on 1999’s Rings of Saturn.

The tale of Philadelphia drummer Rashied Ali’s Survival.

by a.d. amorosi

Free jazz has been with us as long as there’s been music. You won’t find that fact in any jazz tome, but it’s the belief of Philly native Rashied Ali, who sees an arc of improvisational and textural drumming, guided by primal urge and the spiritual, that spans history.

"There was no real start of free jazz for me," says Ali from his Manhattan apartment, excited to talk about the re-release on CD of his Survival Records catalog through Knitting Factory Records. "I’ve always been a free jazz player in my heart. I always thought Bird, Diz and those cats were free. They just didn’t have the marketing tag behind them." It’s fair to say that the composer, leader and percussionist most famous for his stint with John Coltrane is committed to the cause.

Ali took a stand for free jazz when he made the revolutionary, just re-released Interstellar Space (Impulse) with Coltrane in 1967 shortly before Trane’s death. He was willing to put his money where his mouth was in the ’70s by opening a loft space in Manhattan’s SoHo, Ali’s Alley, and start a label, Survival, that put out defining works like the frightening rage and beauty of Moon Flight, the blasted out bombshells of Duo Exchange (with tenor man Frank Lowe), Swift Are The Winds O Life (with violinist LeRoy Jenkins) and several quartet recordings like New Directions In Modern Music.

"These records take me back to a time when the shit was pure," says Ali about the Knitting Factory reissues. And he believes that the future of the avant-garde looks brighter than ever before. In the sleeve notes to Moon Flight, Ali’s 1975 recording in quartet and quintet settings, there is a quote from kindred spirit Sunny Murray, who once said, "Clichéd beats are like slavery or poverty. Freedom drumming is an aspiration towards a better condition." That ideal is a guide to all that Ali has touched.

Born into a musical family ("We had pianos everywhere"), Ali was inspired to pick up the sticks by drumming cousins Charlie and Bernard Rice who played with Jimmy Heath and Coltrane long before he would. Frequenting Philly jazz tap rooms like Pep’s and Showboat, Ali himself came to play with Coltrane in the early ’60s.

He heard the openness that would become free jazz through Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Elvin Jones, the drummer who brought intense polyrhythms and mighty swing to Coltrane’s mounting spirituality on records like My Favorite Things. "When Elvin and Trane were playing, I noticed they extended the amount of spaces one could play freely within. I thought if I could extend that, to something completely open, I could find my own voice."

Ali joined Jones and Coltrane in 1965 for classics Meditations. But the pairing ended soon after; the young Ali removed the necessity for any steady beat, implying meters and rests rather than drumming them. This frenetic style of playing within and through the melody would change jazz forever. "But they were a learning experience," says Ali of Coltrane and Jones. "I couldn’t have done what I would come to do without that. They quickly helped me find my place in the art of free drumming."

Coltrane taught Ali patience, positivity, diversity. "I was very negative then. Doing what was I doing, nobody gave me props…. Coltrane gave me confidence." What he gave Trane, as witnessed by the still-disturbing Interstellar Space, was freedom and more freedom. "I didn’t stay close to bar signatures and times. I was all over the kit and the measures. He called it multi-directional rhythms. I didn’t know what to call it."

For all the regard avant jazz receives now, Coltrane’s death in 1967 left the genre’s evolution in the lurch. "Fusion took over, which Miles endorsed," explains Ali. "People were still craving, like today, old be-bop. Audiences were digging tradition not evolution. That’s what jazz is supposed to be about: keeping on. We had to come up with our own loft scenes, playing in your own homes, release your own records. We were ignored."

He stuck to his guns and created Survival and Ali’s Alley in 1972. He filled his venue with avant-garde lions like Billy Bang, Sonny Stitt and Pharoah Sanders. But his label, with the exception of multi-octave vocalist Joe Lee Wilson’s What Would It Be Without You, was almost exclusively for releasing his material, recorded on a 4-track.

The interactions between himself and saxophonist Marvin Blackman on mid-’70s recordings like Duo Exchange and N.Y. Ain’t So Bad show propulsiveness that screeches through the speaker with the force of heavy metal. Yet, there is an elegant breeziness and a dancing lilt, even more amazing when you realize that guys like Lowe and Blackman were playing in the ghost of Coltrane.

"Everyone plays in the spirit of John. Coltrane was a force. But no one plays like him. That’s bullshit," says Ali. "If they’re true to the game, like Marvin was, that voice will be heard." Ask him to define that voice further and Ali chuckles. "Know what? Marvin just wanted to play. He was playing his heart out."

Age has not blunted Ali’s ideology or playing heft one iota. At 65, after releasing one of his finest CDs ever — 1999’s Rings Of Saturn duet with sax man Louie Belogenis — Ali feels experience has enhanced the physicality of his drumming. "I can move things beyond physical force," says Ali of the technique and wisdom that allows him to make frenzied music with the newest crop of avant-garde players.

"I’m playing stronger and better now than I was in the ’60s. I understand reserve," he says softly. "And that fits beautifully with the present day because between the colleges and performance spaces in New York, quite a noise is being made. There’s more great free jazz players now than before. The music is mightier. And I’m playing and working more now than I ever have, doing exactly what I want to do, playing as outside as I can."