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Al Foster, the jazz drummer who performed in bands led by Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, amongst others, has died. Foster’s daughter Kierra Foster-Ba shared the information on Instagram and his longtime associate, Bonnie Rose Steinberg, instructed NPR that he died “from a severe sickness.” He was 82.
Born in 1943 in Richmond, Virginia, Aloysius Tyrone Foster grew up in Harlem, the second oldest of 5 siblings. His first musical idol was bebop drummer Max Roach, whose 1955 recording of “Cherokee” impressed a 12-year-old Foster to start training day by day on the drum equipment his father had beforehand gifted him. The budding musician acquired his first expertise working as a studio musician on Blue Mitchell’s 1964 album The Factor to Do, which additionally featured a younger Chick Corea. Foster’s large break, nevertheless, arrived a number of years later, when Miles Davis noticed him carry out at a jazz membership on New York’s Higher West Aspect and recruited the drummer to affix his band.
Foster toured with Davis till the latter’s short-term retirement in 1975, and his work may be heard on reside albums equivalent to In Live performance, Agharta, and Darkish Magus. He additionally performed on the Davis a number of studio LPs On the Nook and Large Enjoyable (1974). The prolonged jazz-funk jam “Mr. Foster,” recorded throughout the On the Corner sessions, was named in his honor. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins had beforehand fired Foster from his band after their first gig collectively in 1968, however would carry him on tour in Europe a decade later, and even claimed that “Harlem Boys,” from his 1979 album Don’t Ask, was impressed by the 2 musicians’ related upbringings.
All through the late ’70s and ’80s, Foster additionally backed up pianists Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Horace Silver. In 1978, he turned one in all 4 members within the Milestones Jazzstars—a label-made supergroup that additionally featured Rollins, Tyner, and bassist Ron Carter—and in 1985, each he and Carter lent their skills to saxophone virtuoso Joe Henderson’s The State of the Tenor, Vols. 1 & 2.
Foster continued composing and performing till simply months earlier than his loss of life, holding a longstanding residency on the Higher West Aspect membership Smoke and sharing his final album, Reflections, in 2022. In 1989’s Miles: The Autobiography, co-written with Quincy Troupe, Davis wrote that “Al may set shit up for everyone else to play off after which he may hold the groove going without end…for what I needed in a drummer, Al Foster had all of it.”
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