Hasaan Ibn Ali (born William Henry Langford, Jr.; May 6, 1931 – 1980) was an American
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
pianist and composer.
Ibn Ali was strongly influenced by
Elmo Hope
St. Elmo Sylvester Hope (June 27, 1923 – May 19, 1967) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, chiefly in the bebop and hard bop genres. He grew up playing and listening to jazz and classical music with Bud Powell, and both were ...
, and his playing was rapid and intense, retaining a sense of rhythm even when his style became increasingly unconventional. Only one recording of his playing – ''
The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan'' – was released in his lifetime. Ibn Ali built a reputation in Philadelphia, where he influenced musicians including
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...
, but he remained little known elsewhere.
Life and career
Hasaan Ibn Ali was born William Henry Langford, Jr. in Philadelphia on May 6, 1931.
[Lee, William F. (1984) ''People in Jazz''. p. 163. Columbia Lady Music. .] His mother was a domestic worker.
In 1946 (aged 15), he toured with trumpeter
Joe Morris's rhythm and blues band.
[Porter, Lewis (1998) ''John Coltrane: His Life and Music''. p. 88. University of Michigan Press. .] In 1950, he played locally with
Clifford Brown
Clifford Benjamin Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car accident, leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Spring", an ...
,
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
,
J. J. Johnson
J.J. Johnson (January 22, 1924 – February 4, 2001), born James Louis Johnson and also known as Jay Jay Johnson, was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.
Johnson was one of the earliest trombonists to embrace bebop.
Biograph ...
,
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz Jazz drumming, drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in h ...
, and others.
Based in Philadelphia, Ibn Ali freelanced and acquired a reputation locally as "an original composer and theorist", in musicologist
Lewis Porter
Lewis Robert Porter (born May 14, 1951) is an American jazz pianist, composer, author, and educator.
Education and career
Porter was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but raised primarily in the Bronx in New York City. Porter decided at age 10 that ...
's words.
The pianist performed with
Horace Arnold
Horace Emmanuel Arnold, or Horacee Arnold (born September 25, 1937) is an American jazz drummer. He was born in Wayland, Kentucky.
Career
Arnold first began playing drums in 1957 in Los Angeles while he was in the United States Coast Guard. In ...
in New York City in 1959, and again in 1961–62, in a trio with
Henry Grimes
Henry Grimes (November 3, 1935 – April 15, 2020) was an American jazz double bassist and violinist.
After more than a decade of activity and performance, notably as a leading bassist in free jazz, Grimes completely disappeared from the music s ...
.
According to Roach, while visiting New York, Ibn Ali went from club to club to play, and sometimes at the drummer's home in the middle of the night continued to play unaccompanied on the piano there.
[.] The drummer routinely recorded Ibn Ali's playing in this way when the pianist visited.
The
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
has a 1964 recording of an Ibn Ali solo improvisation, recorded at Roach's home.
John Murph in ''
JazzTimes
''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store.
Coverage
After a decade of growth ...
'' described it in 2014: "Thoroughly modern with a whimsical rhythmic undertow and wayward melodic passages, it sounds like a new
Jason Moran Jason Moran may refer to:
* Jason Moran (criminal) (1967–2003), Australian mobster
* Jason Moran (musician)
Jason Moran (born January 21, 1975) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator involved in multimedia art and theatrical inst ...
composition."
An album, ''
The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan'',
was recorded on December 4 and 7, 1964, and released six months later.
The trio also featured Roach and bassist
Art Davis
Arthur David Davis (December 6, 1934 – July 29, 2007) was a double-bassist, known for his work with Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner and Max Roach.
Biography
Davis was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United State ...
, and the album consisted of seven tracks, all written by Ibn Ali.
The recording opportunity was initiated by Roach, who used his influence with
Nesuhi Ertegun
Nesuhi Ertegun ( Turkish spelling: Nesuhi Ertegün; November 26, 1917 – July 15, 1989) was a Turkish-American record producer and executive of Atlantic Records and WEA International.
Early life
Born in Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire, Nesuhi ...
of
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...
to secure the session for Ibn Ali.
Alan Sukoenig, in his liner notes to the album, wrote: "For a while it appeared that it was Hasaan Ibn Ali's destiny to be known – to those who had heard of him at all – as the extraordinary jazz pianist from Philadelphia who had never made a record."
After the album, Ibn Ali's profile receded once more.
[.]
According to music journalist Tom Moon, Ibn Ali was "Described by (usually tolerant) jazz musicians as eccentric and/or unstable".
Saxophonist
Odean Pope
Odean Pope (born October 24, 1938) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Biography
Pope was raised in Philadelphia, where he learned from Ray Bryant while young. Early in his career, at Philadelphia's Uptown Theater, Pope played behind a numbe ...
, who was mentored by Ibn Ali, stated that the pianist "was so advanced that musicians shied away from him.
..He was very dedicated, very sincere, but also very outspoken
..If he were in a club, and the pianist wasn't making it, Hasaan would push him right off the bench and start playing himself."
[Davis, Francis (1990) ''Outcats: Jazz Composer, Instrumentalists, and Singers''. p. 108. Oxford University Press. .] Pope also described the times that they practised together, over a period of several years, in the house that Ibn Ali lived in with his parents.
Pope arrived at the house in the morning, and they played from 9:30 until 12:00, had a break for lunch and to play chess, then continued practising until four or five o'clock.
Ibn Ali then got dressed, having been in his bathrobe, and they went out to play in the homes of people nearby, for "a couple dollars and some hot tea".
Ibn Ali had further studio sessions, with Pope, Art Davis and drummer Khalil Madi, on August 23 and September 7, 1965.
[Fitzgerald, Michael (October 1, 2011]
"Hasaan Ibn Ali Leader Entry"
jazzdiscography.com The master tapes were destroyed in the fire at Atlantic's warehouse at Long Branch, New Jersey in 1978.
Pope believed that the recordings were not released by Atlantic because the label found out that the pianist had been imprisoned shortly after the sessions for drug offences.
A copy of the recording was uncovered decades later; CD and LP versions were released as ''
Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album'' by Omnivore Recordings in 2021.
A 2-CD set featuring Hasaan, ''Retrospect in Retirement of Delay: The Solo Recordings'' {Omnivore), was released later in 2021. These recordings from 1962–65, according to Richard Brody in ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', "reveals his profundity, his overwhelming power, his mighty virtuosity. It does more than put him on the map of jazz history—it expands the map to include the vast expanse of his musical achievement."
"Reckless with his health, Hasaan died young", commented writer Geoffrey Haydon in 2002.
''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'' states that Ibn Ali died in Philadelphia in 1980 (aged 48 or 49).
Ibn Ali's parents had been killed in a fire that destroyed their home at 2406 North Gratz Street on October 24 that year.
He went to a recreation centre for homeless people after the fire.
Playing style and influences
A reviewer for ''
The Glasgow Herald
''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in ...
'' in 1965 commented on Ibn Ali's playing on the Atlantic album with Roach that "One's first reaction is astonishment at the blazing finger technique,
..and the complete individuality of his harmonics
ic. AllMusic reviewer
Scott Yanow
Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author.Allmusic Biography/ref>
Biography
Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles.
Since 1974, he was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles an ...
described Ibn Ali's playing on the album as "intense, somewhat virtuosic and rhythmic, yet often melodic in a quirky way".
[Yanow, Scot]
"Max Roach – The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan"
AllMusic. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
Drummer
Sherman Ferguson
Sherman Eugene Ferguson (October 31, 1944 – January 22, 2006) was an American jazz drummer. For a time he was a member of the jazz trio Heard Ranier Ferguson.
Background
Ferguson once said that when people asked him what he did, he wouldn't ...
said of Ibn Ali, "he was a prime example of somebody that was very avant-garde in some ways, but he was always musical. So people of all ages liked his music, even when he
played out.
..Hehad that thing, where he had a natural feeling. He got to the thing where it
swung no matter what he was doing."
[Rosenbaum, Bob (September 7, 1981]
"An Interview with Sherman Ferguson"
KCRW-FM transcript. p. 9. Saxophonist
Benny Golson
Benny Golson (born January 25, 1929) is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He came to prominence with the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, more as a writer than a performer, before launch ...
commented that Ibn Ali "became very skilled at the modern sounds, and then went right past them into something very esoteric. He went way out there. I guess you could say his brakes didn't work."
Jazz critic Kenny Mathieson described Ibn Ali as "An
Elmo Hope
St. Elmo Sylvester Hope (June 27, 1923 – May 19, 1967) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, chiefly in the bebop and hard bop genres. He grew up playing and listening to jazz and classical music with Bud Powell, and both were ...
acolyte with a rhythmic quirkiness that had him compared with
Monk">heloniousMonk and
Nichols">erbieNichols".
[Mathieson, Kenny (2012]
''Giant Steps: Bebop and the Creators of Modern Jazz''
Canongate. . Ibn Ali himself credited Hope with being his main inspiration: "by meeting Mr Hope it was like talking to and having acquaintance with the mystery of music, who explained not by the ruler or lip but with music. So from him I heard how to learn."
[Sukoenig, Alan. In ''The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan''. ]P liner notes
P, or p, is the sixteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''pee'' (pronounced ), plural ''pees''.
History
The ...
Atlantic 1435.
Legacy
Pope credits Ibn Ali with influencing saxophonist
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...
's
sheets of sound Sheets of sound was a term coined in 1958 by ''DownBeat'' magazine jazz critic Ira Gitler to describe the new, unique improvisational style of John Coltrane. Gitler first used the term on the liner notes for ''Soultrane'' (1958).Porter 1999, p. 31 ...
approach. Ibn Ali examined the possibilities of playing fourths, and of using "chord progressions that moved by seconds or thirds instead of fifths, in playing a variety of scales and arpeggios against each chord" – features later used extensively in Coltrane's playing.
A home recording of Ibn Ali playing with Coltrane and others in 1952 may exist.
Pope also commented that "every important musician who came out of this area
hiladelphiain the fifties and sixties, including
McCoy Tyner
Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938March 6, 2020) was an American jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet (from 1960 to 1965) and his long solo career afterwards. He was an NEA Jazz Masters, NEA ...
, learned from him."
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibn Ali, Hasaan
1931 births
1980 deaths
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
American male jazz musicians
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American male musicians