The word “survival,” signaling viability tinged with ferocity for the fittest, is a perfect name for the label founded by Rashied Ali in 1973, operated until his passing in 2009 with 10 titles to its name, and restarted earlier this year for the purpose of releasing his lost and hidden work. Renowned for his free, fierce intensity and thundering drive, Ali—famed as the drummer in John Coltrane’s final quartet, as well as for recording Interstellar Space with Trane months before his death—was wise enough to capitalize on his place in the East Village loft-jazz scene of the time by creating a label to catalog his many moods and shifting expressions.
Duo Exchange crafted by Ali and the tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe at the studio of musician pal Marzette Watts is more limber, relaxed-fit exercise in drum-and-saxophone union. Duo Exchange is as free as the wind. - A.D. Amorosi
Tracks
1. Exchange Part 1
2. Exchange Part 2
RASHIED ALI drums, percussion
FRANK LOWE tenor saxophone, japanese flute, percussion
All music by Rashied Ali and Frank Lowe
Recorded 1972 at Watts Studios, NYC
Knit Classics Records - KCR-3020