Featuring the Legendary Hasaan

Max Roach Trio, The

Jazz at the Brink of Unhinged

Of all forms of music, jazz may be the most hospitable to mental instability. It takes a certain touch of rashness, if not madness, to pursue the as-yet-undiscovered. In real time. Without a map. The history books tell of extraordinarily gifted musicians (Thelonious Monk, Phineas Newborn) who struggled at various times with mental illness, but still managed to challenge their fellow musicians and push beyond the prevailing conventions of small-group jazz. Then there are those "differently wired" people who, despite great talent, weren't able to make a sustained contribution to music. Ibn Ali Hasaan, the Philadelphia pianist, belongs in that group.

Described by (usually tolerant) jazz musicians as eccentric and/or unstable, Hasaan made this one shockingly inventive record during a period of busy activity in the early '60s, and then receded from view. At the time, Hasaan was an "it" child of East Coast jazz, an original voice whose performances at jam sessions (with Johnny Griffin and others) were recalled in reverent tones.

Hasaan's recorded debut was set up by one of his champions, drummer Max Roach. Roach headlined, but all the music was written by the pianist, and these tricky originals take the time-shifting intricacy of bebop to more extreme places, obscuring their logic beneath a layer of provocation. "Almost like Me" is a stomp written mostly in quarter notes that grows disturbingly zombielike as it progresses; the title of the opening tune, "Three-Four vs. Six-Eight Four-Four Ways," offers a good indication of its metric convolutions, as well as its complexity. While it's possible to detect a dash of Monk in the clustered chords, Hasaan had his own way of playing—his inventions are absolute genius one minute and pure madness the next.

Genre: Jazz
Released: 1965, Atlantic
Key Tracks: "Off My Back Jack," "Pay Not Play Not," "Hope So Elmo."
Next Stop: Phineas Newborn Jr.: A World of Piano!
After That: Thelonious Monk: Solo Monk
Book Pages: 648–649

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