Still Out There

Interstellar jazz legend Rashied Ali makes space for the next generation.

by Shaun Brady

Jos L. Knaepen GIANT STEPS: Born in Philly, Rashied Ali went on to play with Ayler, Shepp and Coltrane. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Drummer Rashied Ali was the subject of one of the most famous mentorships in jazz history, thrust into the spotlight when he first supplemented and then replaced Elvin Jones in John Coltrane's band. Ali was there alongside the legendary saxophonist on his furthest explorations into the outer limits of his music, most notably as Trane's duet partner on the groundbreaking Interstellar Space.

So it's not entirely surprising that Ali has himself settled into something of a mentor's role, leading a quintet of strong young players. "I seem to get with younger people who are more interested in playing something different," Ali explains over the phone from his home, directly above the SoHo recording studio that formerly housed his mid-'70s loft club, Ali's Alley. "They listen to my old records and when they come, they're sort of prepared for me. I feel like the younger cats are the backbone of the music, so I try to contribute as much as I can to them to help them along like Trane helped me along."

Throughout the quintet's two CDs, Judgment Day Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, on the leader's own Survival Records, Ali's exuberant style is fully in evidence, driving the music forward with a combustible force that threatens to project the drummer straight out of his chair, laced with his omnipresent chattering cymbals. What may come as a surprise is that the music they produce is not the burning free jazz with which Ali is most closely associated, but far more straightahead hard bop, two sets of originals, obscure jazz tunes and a few standards.

"Actually, I've always played like that," Ali says. "Listen to Interstellar Space and the tunes that I did with Coltrane, I'm always dealing with a pulse. Some people think I just throw everything up in the air, helter-skelter boom, and let it come down like it is, but I never really played like that."

Ali's quintet was originally formed with fellow undersung free-jazz pioneer Frank Lowe, but when the tenor saxophonist passed away in 2003, the group transformed into its current configuration, resembling Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in its structure of a veteran drummer leading a group of younger acolytes.

"People are putting me into a bag like that now," Ali admits. "They're calling me the new Art Blakey, because I guess I'm a senior citizen now and I've got all these kids playing with me. But I love playing with younger cats because their minds are open and they're willing to take a chance with the music. I agree with Blakey, I'm going to stay with the young people, man, because they keep me young."

Born in 1935 in Philly (where he still has a house), Ali got his start playing with local rhythm and blues bands, later graduating to more straightahead jazz groups, but everything changed when first heard the burgeoning free jazz movement.

"When I heard cats like Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor and Coltrane and Eric Dolphy, I started trying to change my direction," Ali recalls. "I said, 'Wow, there's something else I need to be dealing with.'"

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With his brother Muhammad, Ali formed a double trio in emulation of the Ornette Coleman double quartet that had recorded Free Jazz. But the Ali brothers found little acceptance in Philadelphia at that time. "Even the musicians started looking at me all funny," he says. "Everybody was going, 'What is this shit you're doing now, man?' But I just committed myself to doing that."

In 1963, Ali made the move to New York, where he fell in with more sympathetic thinkers such as Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp and Marion Brown. Two years later, he found himself in Coltrane's band. Coltrane impressed Ali with his fanatical devotion to his music, applying himself with such zeal that even discussing it 40 years later, Ali chastised himself for going a few days without practicing.

"He definitely was a searcher, man," Ali says. "He played all the time. In the dressing room before the gig he'd be playing, and by the time we'd get on the bandstand he'd be wet from practicing in the back room. It really made a hell of an impression on me. He wasn't a sports fanatic, he wasn't into basketball, football, baseball, none of that shit. He didn't even know who Willie Mays was. He was just unbelievably into what he was into, and I've never seen anybody else who could do that. That's crazy, man, to just put all of your marbles in one basket, but that's what he did."

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Rashied Ali Quintet plays Sat., Jan. 19, 8 and 10 p.m., $20 (first show), $15 (second show), Chris' Jazz Café, 1421 Sansom St., 215-568-3131, chrisjazzcafe.com.