1999 · Album
Brazilian Watercolour
Recorded 1999 · Homestead Records · Produced by Not credited
Ali's Rare Detour Into Global Rhythm
A drummer leading the conversation, drums and percussion painting the whole landscape, not just keeping time.
Rashied Ali spent his career as one of jazz's most propulsive, uncompromising drummers — the man who played alongside John Coltrane in his final years, who understood that drums could be a lead voice rather than a timekeeping instrument. Brazilian Watercolour (1999) is not a career statement or a late-period reassessment. It's something else: a rare moment when Ali steps fully into the role of bandleader with a specific sonic mission, bringing together Matthew Shipp on piano and Ivo Perelman on tenor saxophone alongside Brazilian percussionists Cyro Baptista and Guilherme Franco. The album does what its title suggests — it's impressionistic rather than heavy-handed, letting rhythmic colors bleed and overlap instead of locking into strict patterns. Shipp's piano doesn't anchor so much as drift alongside the drums and percussion, which creates space rather than fills it. Perelman's tenor moves with restraint, choosing silence as often as sound. For a drummer known for intensity, this is notable: Ali allows the music to breathe. The Brazilian percussion gives the record a texture that sits apart from Ali's core discography — it's not a continuation of his free jazz vocabulary but a conversation with another tradition. It never becomes a full embrace of samba or bossa, staying instead in that liminal space between forms. This is specialist listening, genuinely interesting for anyone curious about how drummers think about structure and space when they're not playing behind a horn player.
Who's playing
Matthew Shipppiano
Ivo Perelmantenor saxophone
Rashied Alidrums
Cyro Baptistapercussion
Guilherme Francopercussion
Where next?
More by Rashied Ali
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Duo Exchange 1973
Swift Are the Winds of Life 1975
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N.Y. Ain't So Bad: Ali Plays The Blues 1975
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The October Revolution 1996
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
