Hasaan Ibn Ali • Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album
 hether it's by car crash
(Clifford Brown and Richie Powell, Scott LaFaro), drug overdose (Dick Twardzick), illness
(John Coltrane), accident (Chet Baker) or murder (Lee Morgan), the cutting short of a
career has happened with unnerving frequency among jazz musicians. Hasaan Ibn Ali was a
talented but difficult Philadelphia pianist when drummer Max Roach chose him in 1964 as a
recording partner. The title of the resulting album, The Max Roach Trio Featuring the
Legendary Hasaan, may have built up Ali too much, but the music, a collection of
seven of Ali's original compositions, and playing made "Legendary" seem nearly
on the mark. This is an album that jazz collectors know well but most not immersed in the
music have never heard of. Although it was released on Atlantic, it sounds to my ears like
an album from Blue Note, because of the sophisticated music and tight, urgent playing.
On the strength of that album, Atlantic rushed Ali back into the studio for a follow-up session. Now a leader, he chose fellow Philadelphian Odeon Pope to play tenor sax, Art Davis to play bass and Kalil Madi to play drums. This quartet recorded in August and September 1965, but Ali's subsequent drug arrest proved to be a literal deal-breaker for Atlantic. The album was never released, Ali never recorded again, and he died in obscurity in 1981. The tapes of the session sat undisturbed for over a decade, and in 1978 the warehouse where they and many other Atlantic master tapes were stored, in Long Branch, New Jersey, burned down. A rumor that a copy of the session existed was around for years, but attempts to find any source materials were unsuccessful. Then, in 2017, a tape copy of the session's reference acetates turned up. One cut, "Per Aspera Ad Astra," the last recorded during the sessions, was missing, but three shorter alternate versions of other tunes were available. Grammy-winning engineer Michael Graves mastered and restored what was on the tape for CD and digital download. A two-LP set is also available. Ali's earliest influence was Count Basie, but it's natural to compare his mature playing to that of Thelonious Monk. Both pianists had original and sophisticated approaches to rhythm and harmony. But I also hear McCoy Tyner, who, like Ali, was a skillful composer. The '60s-style hard bop is inventive, each tune, including the alternate takes, having its own sense of momentum, never meandering or bogging down in compulsory soloing. "Atlantic Ones," a driving blues number, opens the recording and makes a case for its position as catalyst. "Viceroy" is a jaunty reworking of a cigarette jingle, and "El Hasaan" sounds like a lost number from Eric Dolphy's great Out to Lunch! "Metaphysics," the first track recorded during the sessions, is based on chord changes from a Charlie Parker composition. "True Train" is the recording's most expansive piece, at eleven minutes in length, and its title, with reference to John Coltrane, implies the space Odeon Pope gets for his playing. Ali and Pope make a very compelling pair, at once creating a mighty racket, then working out the lines they'd begun with the confidence of recording veterans. It's a significant loss that we didn't get to hear more of them together. Given the source material, the mono sound has surprising fidelity along with some semblance of bass, which is more plush than tight and well defined. Instrumental lines are less vivid and the perspective a touch more distant than what's heard on various Blue Note CDs, for instance, but the overall sound is good and not grossly out of step with that of most '60s sessions that have been digitized. The year isn't quite halfway over and this is my favorite
release so far -- for the music and the story. I suspect it will still be that way once
2021 is in the jazz-history books, which is where the name Hasaan Ibn Ali belongs. |
