Hasaan Ibn Ali worked in an ensemble led by
Max Roach and was
credited as “the Legendary Hasaan” on one of the groundbreaking drummer’s mid-’60s
releases. But the pianist didn’t release an album as a bandleader during his
lifetime — and in fact, only ever appeared on that one studio album — making
him more of a jazz-world footnote than a household name.
اضافة اعلان
Now his legacy could undergo a reassessment. Ibn Ali did helm an
ensemble in the studio in 1965, and the resulting album, long presumed
destroyed in a fire, will be released on Friday as “Metaphysics: The Lost
Atlantic Album.”
The saxophonist
Odean Pope, who played on the record, said Ibn
Ali’s talents have long been overlooked.
“He can play the most complex piece, like a ‘Cherokee,’ or the
most beautiful composition like, ‘Embraceable You,’ and play those tunes
extremely good,” Pope said of his mentor, who died in 1981. “Sometimes, he
would play a ballad and tears would be coming down my cheeks.”
Ibn Ali, who was born William Henry Lankford Jr. in 1931, evolved
from a tradition-minded performer in the late ‘40s after assimilating the bop
advancements of pianist
Elmo Hope, who along with
Bud Powell and
TheloniousMonk is credited with helping reimagine the keyboard. And through living-room
sessions at his North Philadelphia home, as well as at sporadic club gigs, Ibn
Ali helped guide performers amid early, exploratory periods of their careers,
like saxophonist
John Coltrane and bassist
Reggie Workman.
A regular on the rich Philadelphia jazz scene, Ibn Ali was known
for his adventurous playing as much as his sometimes-difficult demeanor. While
Pope recalled the pianist as an empathetic and thoughtful teacher, Ibn Ali was
said to have booted lesser players off the bandstand mid-performance. He also
was renowned for a particular fashion idiosyncrasy: If he had to wear a tie at
some gigs, it would hang only about halfway down his torso.
Ibn Ali cut “Metaphysics” the same year Roach released “The Max
Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan,” which featured seven compositions
by the pianist. Atlantic, which released the Roach album, was impressed enough
to sponsor a quartet session for Ibn Ali.
For the sessions, the pianist enlisted Pope, bassist Art Davis
and drummer Kalil Madi, and the ensemble holed up in a New York hotel, working
to grasp the bandleader’s new compositions. Sessions for the album started Aug.
23 and concluded on September 7. But according to Alan Sukoenig’s liner notes
for “Metaphysics,” following Ibn Ali’s incarceration on drug
charges, Atlantic executives shelved the album, believing they wouldn’t be able
to rely on the pianist to promote his work.
Master tapes from the sessions were thought destroyed in a 1978
fire at an Atlantic warehouse in New Jersey. But a previously made recording
from the reference acetates survived and was located in the Warner Tape Library
late in 2017 through connections of the archival release’s associate producer,
the jazz pianist and retired educator Lewis Porter.
The release of “Metaphysics” serves to fill in an unknown bit of
history. It also ramps up the total number of available tunes recorded by Ibn
Ali from seven to 14; three cuts on the upcoming disc were captured in
alternate takes and tacked on to the end of the album.
Following his experiences with the “Metaphysics” sessions, Ibn
Ali remained in Philadelphia and largely eschewed public performances. After a
1972 fire destroyed his parents’ Philadelphia house, where he spent his adult
life, the pianist lived out his final years at a convalescent home. Pope, who
helped arrange his funeral, said poetry had supplanted the piano as Ibn Ali’s
main mode of expression there.
Even if the pianist’s myth rests on just a handful of published
songs and memories of other performances and impromptu sessions from the early ‘60s,
his whispered artistic largess continues to pervade Philadelphia’s jazz scene.
“Hasaan was like the whole town’s university. He’d explored and
done so many things,” Pope said. “There should be a plaque, like at [Coltrane’s]
house. I think he should be remembered as one of the great forerunners of our
times.”
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