Remember Rashied Ali

I came home from work tonight and after Jennie and I talked about our respective days and about the kid, she said she heard that Rashied Ali had died. What can I say that I haven't said previously when blogging about a jazz great dying. "It's a damn shame"? "Not again"? How about this: It's bad enough that we lost Les Paul...

(Although I have to say it always made me feel good that Les lasted as long as he did, playing until almost the very end.)

So now, only two people who played with John Coltrane during his seminal quartet/quintet years are still alive: McCoy Tyner and Pharoah Sanders. A lot of people (non-free jazz fans, that is) might put Ali down because of his loose, wild style of playing, but the guy knew what he was doing. You talk about a flowing sound - that's what he did on the kit. I have two CDs he did as a leader, one with Leroy Jenkins and the other w/a quintet that included James Blood Ulmer. I'll have to get them out tonight.