Part of Rashied Ali’s artistic strength involved turning improbable sound combinations into unchallenged masterpieces. After the pattern established by John Coltrane’s Interstellar Space, and Duo Exchange with Frank Lowe, the drummer stepped into a rather unlikely duet with violinist Leroy Jenkins for Swift are the Winds of Life. Five years with the Revolutionary Ensemble had established Jenkins as a composer; he designed all the pieces played on these 1975 duets with Ali. That record is issued on vinyl here for the first time in almost a half century. The LP is augmented by an informal phantom session in which Ali and Jenkins explore thoroughly other territories—standards, Coltrane’s music, and two untitled, unbridled improvisations. SR-512 is a deluxe 2-LP set packaged in an old-school tip-on gatefold jacket that includes Stanley Crouch’s original 1975 essay along with new liner notes and excerpts from an interview with Jenkins.
“Leroy and I never played together, and so we decided to get together. We came into the club when it was closed, I turned on the tape recorder and we just started playing, not even thinking that it was gonna turn out the way that it turned out, and that was the first and the last time we played. It was great thing; it was in the winter time. For the pictures we went up to Central Park where it was freezing cold and Valerie Wilmer took the pictures for us. It was just a whim.”
From 1972 until his death in 2009, Rashied Ali operated Survival Records as the primary record label for his work as a leader and for other projects. Through that time, Ali documented every phase of his career as a musician. Under the custodianship of the Ali family, Survival Records was revived in 2019 as a platform for improved, definitive reissues of the original LP releases as well as additional, hitherto unreleased performances from Ali’s archive. Survival releases have been optimized through the practices of Grammy-nominated veteran mastering engineer Joe Lizzi, the musical acuity of drummer George Schuller, and historical input from re- searcher Ben Young—overseen by the Estate of Rashied Ali a sense of stillness – a peace found in unison.
