Hasaan Ibn Ali – Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album (Vinyl 2LP)

Hasaan’s 1965 Atlantic Recordings, Restored from Long-Lost Acetate Copies of the Sessions!

The pianist, Hasaan Ibn Ali, whom saxophonist Odean Pope calls “the most advanced player to ever develop [in Philadelphia],” had practiced intensively with John Coltrane in the early ’50s and is thought, by Pope and others, to have been the influence behind Coltrane’s so-called sheets of sound as well as the harmonic approach that underlay Coltrane’s breakthrough Giant Steps, and also, with Earl Bostic, one of the two role models behind Coltrane’s strict work ethic. Yet he was rarely employed, even by musicians who respected his playing and his knowledge, thus leaving him with little chance to develop an audience. When he sat down at the piano at the Woodbine, an after-hours club in Philadelphia, all the horn players would leave the stand for they were unable to play with him, so unfamiliar were his harmonic concepts.

In 1964, drummer/composer Max Roach convinced Atlantic Records to record him with producer Nusuhi Ertegun at the helm. Sessions were held in December of 1964 and the resulting album, The Max Roach Trio Featuring The Legendary Hasaan was released three months later. Atlantic invited Ali to record again in August and September of 1965, but before mixing sessions could turn the recorded material into a releasable album, Ali had become incarcerated on a narcotics possession. Atlantic shelved the album. Thirteen years later that tape went up in flames in an Atlantic Records warehouse in Long Branch, New Jersey. For years a rumor circulated, that a copy of the sessions had been made, but attempts to locate it never turned up a source…until now.

Restored and mastered by Grammy Award-winning engineer, Michael Graves from a tape copy of long-lost reference acetates of the sessions and with notes from producer Alan Sukoenig and author/pianist/teacher, Lewis Porter, Omnivore Recordings is proud to present this long-thought lost piece of jazz history. The project, co-produced by Alan Sukoenig and Grammy-nominated producer, Patrick Milligan, and Grammy-winning producer, Cheryl Pawelski, features the seven surviving tracks from the album sessions along with three surviving alternate takes. Packaging includes photos from December of 1964 by notable photographer Larry Fink, who refers to Ali as, “the Prokofiev of jazz.”

Personnel on the August 23 and September 7, 1965 sessions that took place at Atlantic Studios in New York City were Hasaan Ibn Ali, piano; Odean Pope, tenor sax; Art Davis, bass and Kalil Madi, drums and all are profiled in the liner notes.

LP1

1. Atlantic Ones
2. Viceroy
3. El Hasaan
4. Richard May Love Give Powell
5. Metaphysics
6. Epitome

LP2

1. True Train
2. True Train (Short Version) [Bonus Track]
3. Viceroy (Short Version) [Bonus Track]
4. Atlantic Ones (Short Version) [Bonus Track]