Jazz Articles about Hasaan Ibn Ali

About Hasaan Ibn Ali

Album Review

Hasaan Ibn Ali: Reaching For The Stars: Solos/Duos/Trios

Read "Reaching For The Stars: Solos/Duos/Trios" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
November 17, 2023

Since its inception in 2010, Omnivore Recordings has applied a most stringent set of standards to its archival efforts devoted to the disparate likes of Merle Haggard, Maynard Ferguson and the Posies (and no less so in the occasional preparation and release of new content such as Americana master Peter Case). The label has rightly been recognized for its exacting approach to vault exhumations. Perhaps the most laudable of all its campaigns is the one on behalf of ...

Profile

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

by Victor L. Schermer
March 29, 2022

"The new release of Hasaan's Retrospect In Retirement Of Delay: The Solo Recordings (Omnivore Recordings, 2021), which features him in privately recorded performances from 1962 to 1965, 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."—Richard Brody (The New Yorker, December 2021) Hasaan Ibn Ali was a brilliant pianist and composer, legendary among those ...

Extended Analysis

Retrospect in Retirement of Delay: The Solo Recordings

by Doug Collette
November 17, 2021

Solo musical performances are a rare and unusual experience unto themselves for both artist and audience. Whether song-oriented or in improvisational mode, the creator offers the work from a stance of vulnerability in the hope of connecting with the observers in such a way that the intimacy of the moment(s) provides insight into the minds and hearts of all. And, paradoxical as it may seem, such stirring moments can resonate equally resoundingly in a large hall or the isolation of ...

Album Review

Hasaan Ibn Ali: Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album

by Doug Collette
May 14, 2021

It has been years since the woefully unsung pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali recorded Metaphysics and, while its circuitous route to release is worth more than a little note, that story seems to have taken precedence over insight into and observation of the music itself. In keeping with its customarily astute archival approach, the Omnivore curating team included extensive liner notes by associate producer Lewis Porter, as well as co-producer Alan Sukoenig, both of which pieces maintain the focus on the ...

Album Review

Hasaan Ibn Ali: Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album

by Karl Ackermann
April 5, 2021

The hard bop, Philadelphia pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali had a short, troubled life. On what was believed his only recording, The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan (Atlantic, 1965), the drummer placed Ali's full image front and center, his name in a larger font on the LP cover. Within the Philadelphia jazz community, he was well-known and considered uniquely talented, if unpredictable. He practiced with John Coltrane and saxophonist Odean Pope is among those who credit Ali with inspiring ...