Hasaan Ibn Ali Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album

Tenor saxophonist Odean Pope "credits Ibn Ali with influencing saxophonist John Coltrane’s sheets of sound 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 [Philadelphia] in the fifties and sixties, including McCoy Tyner, learned from him.” (quoted from Wikipedia)


Reading about this upcoming release by the Roach band with Hasaan and Odean Pope prompted me to take down from the shelf and re-listen to the wonderful 2005 album on Half Note, LOCKED AND LOADED: LIVE AT THE BLUE NOTE by frequent Roach associate Odean Pope and his Saxophone Choir. The choir is comprised of 9 saxophonists – 3 altos, 5 tenors and 1 baritone – supported by piano, bass and drums. This is a must-hear album for lovers of the sax. And if the 9 saxes are not enough for you, the album also features guest tenor men Michael Brecker on two tracks, Joe Lovano on 2 and James Carter on one.


A high point of the album is to hear this beast of a saxophone section burn through Pope’s composition “Prince Lasha” a feat which inspires an astonishing solo by Brecker, that puts on full display his technical brilliance and deep emotional range. (A sad note in the liner mentions that during final preparation of the album Brecker’s illness and need for a stem cell transplant first became known.) Album producer Jeff Levenson notes that the aforementioned altoist Prince Lasha, a friend of Pope’s to whom he pays tribute here, encouraged him to invite Ornette Coleman to the performances at the Blue Note. Coleman did attend and was suitably impressed, enough so to pen the liner notes for the album. We find that Coleman’s use of words is just as strikingly unusual and original as his choice of musical notes: “Odean pope’s (sic) latest cd is the sound map for the use of unresolvebale (sic) ideas which are based on the installation of new territories” and so on.


I also very much enjoyed Pope’s arrangement of the beautiful Coltrane composition “Central Park West,” one my favorite tunes. It is not quite the equal of what I deem to be the most sublime cover, that from 1980’S JACK DEJOHNETTE/SPECIAL EDITION (ECM) which featured the saxophones of Arthur Blythe and David Murray. As a self-appointed connoisseur of the alto saxophone, I find the choir’s lead alto voice to be just a tad too “acidic” for my taste. The album also has a second Coltrane composition, “Coltrane Time.” Here Pope and Brecker trade solos and duet to ably evoke the sound of Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. The notion of homage is compounded by pianist George Burton and bassist Tyrone Brown’s evocations of Tyner and Garrison. The surprise to me was the playing of drummer Craig McIver who brought to mind both Jones and Ali, and capped it all off with a solo that was uniquely his own, perhaps with a dash of The Roach tossed into the mix. The closing tune, “Muntu Chant” features soloist James Carter in his one appearance on the album. Remarkably, after all of the fine saxophone playing, Carter surpasses them all with an exuberant and technically impressive display.


A joy of the album, for me, was the opportunity it gave to compare and contrast the sound and styles of four master tenor saxophone technicians: Pope, Brecker, Lovano and Carter, all of whom have distinct styles and illustrate something that Pope once expressed: "Every time I pick that horn up there's always something that I discover I can do differently if I really seek. If you were on planet Earth for, like, 2 billion years, I feel as though there's always something new that you can find to do. There's no end.”



In my mind’s eye (and ear) I imagine the now 82-year old Odean Pope sitting out on the porch with his fellow Philadelphia resident, the 96-year old Marshall Allen, reminiscing about the titans of jazz, such as Max Roach and Sun Ra, with whom they played and associated. (Note: In 2011, Pope and Allen released UNIVERSAL SOUNDS on Porter Records).

Just read this review in the April edition of The NYC Jazz Record. Download their magazine/pdf here:

www.nycjazzrecord.com/


"Unearthed Gem

Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album
Hasaan Ibn Ali (Omnivore)
by Duck Baker

For over half a century, the reputation of Philadelphia-based pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali has rested on a single record, The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan, which appeared on Atlantic in early 1965. Given what an astonishing record it is, many have always believed that reputation should have been greater. Roach, for example, considered Ali as one of the three great pianist/composers of his generation, along with Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols and the Legendary Hasaan date confirms that he was an extraordinarily original musician. His piano technique could be almost overwhelming and as an improviser he can seem, at first blush, like a missing link between Bud Powell and Cecil Taylor, though this description is not quite satisfactory on either end. Ali does feel a bit like Taylor in terms of harmonic density, but he is usually referencing ‘normal’ jazz harmonic thinking, albeit in a way that is further removed than what we are used to, even in 2021. And the strongest earlier influence was another underrated genius of modern jazz piano, Elmo Hope, rather than Powell.

Some listeners are aware that Ali did lead a followup quartet session for Atlantic later in 1965, but that the unissued masters were later lost in the notorious 1978 warehouse fire. Rumor of a surviving tape copy persisted, however, and this unissued date assumed legendary status in its own right, the stuff jazz dreams have been made of, ever since the idea of a Buddy Bolden cylinder recording first circulated. Some of these dreams have materialized over the years, such as Dean Benedetti’s recordings of Charlie Parker or the session featuring Albert Ayler with Cecil Taylor. And it’s wonderful to have these, even when the historical value supersedes their musical worth, but it’s hard to remember a case where the reality of one of these dreamed-of lost sessions exceeded expectations.

Metaphysics will exceed expectations. It is even stronger in some ways than the trio record and helps us understand why people like Roach, Johnny Griffin and so many other musicians considered Ali a genius. The presence of Odean Pope is essential. He is one of the great line of Philadelphia tenor saxophonists, which included Bill Barron, John Coltrane and Archie Shepp, and Ali, like many pianists, assumes a different role when there is a horn player present both because we hear him comp behind a soloist but also because his own solos are constructed differently. He’s delivering a chapter, not a whole novel. Pope sounds great on this, his debut recording. Ali had been mentoring the younger man for over a decade by the time of these sessions and Pope was not only comfortable with Ali’s compositions but also able to expand on them. He is viewed as coming out of Coltrane, stylistically, and there is nothing but honor in this, but we should remember that Ali was a major influence on Coltrane, and Pope often heard the two older musicians play together (there was even a recording of Coltrane and Barron jamming with Ali, though that really has been lost, alas).

Accepting that Ali was an important influence is one thing, but explaining that influence is difficult. Pope and others tell us that the pianist provided a model for Coltrane’s demanding work ethic and influenced his harmonic thinking, as well as his “sheets of sound” approach to improvising. But we cannot point to any unified theoretical approach like George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept and it doesn’t clarify things much when we hear that Ali talked about things like twenty-ninth chords. He himself felt that he was extending an approach used by Hope, though most people would hear Hope as an advanced bebopper. It’s easy to hear his influence, though. Something of the brooding harmonic quality of Hope ballads like “Barfly” was heard in “Hope So, Elmo” on the Legendary Hasaan record and is heard again on the dedication here to another pianist, Bud’s brother Richie Powell, “Richard May Love Give Powell”. There are also specific chord voicings that sound similar and Ali, like Hope, made ample use of the higher registers of the piano while soloing, though his touch was always more assertive. Both Hope (“De-Dah”) and Ali (“Almost Like Me”) wrote great tunes based on riff figures, but so did Monk and Herbie Nichols, among others. Metaphysics opens with a textbook example of such a tune, “Atlantic Ones”, a performance that evokes a genie bursting free from confinement. Apart from Coltrane himself, it’s hard to imagine a tenor saxophonist who could have sounded as assured as Pope in this rocky harmonic terrain. The next tune, “Viceroy”, is like bent bebop, written over the chord sequence of “Mean To Me”, and both Ali and Pope reference the normal changes as well as mysteriously derived substitutions. The tag to this tune is reminiscent of Hope’s recording of “It’s a Lovely Day Today”.

The self-referencing title “El Hasaan” is particularly impressive. It is not a complicated melody but takes two or three cubist turns and the structure and chord sequence also feel slightly off- kilter. Appropriately, Pope takes a more abstract approach, so that while we hear echoes of Coltrane’s sheets of sound, they seem to come from unexpected directions. When his solo ends abruptly in mid- phrase, we are left feeling that every unpredictable twist follows the piece’s internal logic. Ali’s own solo evokes not only Hope and Monk but Count Basie, Art Tatum and even boogie woogie pianists like Cripple Clarence Lofton, but again, we feel that every note and nuance makes perfect sense. This is also a good place to note how much the rhythm team of Art Davis and Kalil Madi add to the music. The latter was a fine drummer who has been heard mostly in situations that required him to rein things in (Freddie McCoy, The Three Sounds, Earl Hines), but this situation requires a lot of push and imagination and he provides both. He is assertive on tracks like “Viceroy”, but the tension he generates while holding things down for much of “El Hasaan” is impressive and frames Ali’s solo perfectly. Davis is invaluable as well, as he was on the trio date. His bass sound is so enormous that we might not even notice how complex his lines are at times. Not busy, but complex—there’s no need to be busy behind the likes of Ali and Pope!

The outstanding liner notes are by Alan Sukoenig, who also wrote the notes for original release of the Legendary Hasaan, with additional notes from Coltrane biographer Lewis Porter, and both writers give us a much fuller picture of Hasaan Ibn Ali than we had before, depressing as some of the story is. Sukoenig also has other unreleased recordings that we may hope to hear on a future release, which gives us further reason to buy this long-awaited masterpiece, if any is needed."

Must-read:


"Hasaan Ibn Ali: Requiem (And Praise) For A Heavyweight Pianist"

www.allaboutjazz.com/legendary-pianist-and-composer-hasaan-ibn-ali-requiem-and-praise-for-a-heavyweight-hasaan-ibn-ali







Full Album:


m.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lt13-Kk8oWUKso91gWSAGs15lK6foQy7E

Please listen to that ^. It's fascinating.


"The Solo Performances of Hasaan Ibn Ali Expand the History of Jazz
The pianist’s “Retrospect In Retirement Of Delay” is a historic outpouring of musical imagination.

By Richard Brody
December 31, 2021"

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-solo-performances-of-hasaan-ibn-ali-expand-the-history-of-jazz

"In a 1978 interview that Sukoenig quotes, [Max] Roach (who died in 2007) said that he made home recordings of Hasaan when the pianist visited him: “I have hours of him playing solo piano that’s unbelievable.”"

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-solo-performances-of-hasaan-ibn-ali-expand-the-history-of-jazz