Alaadeen, tenor sax/Harold O'Neal, piano/Seth Lee, bass/Donivan Bailey, drums
   When Alaadeen first wrote this tune he called it S.S.P.
   The arts are the human face of a nation. Whatever the specific political, military or economical concern between countries…cultural communications can create an improved climate of trust and friendship.   
   The title is S.S.P.  which is peace in the three major languages of Hebrew, Arabic and English...Shalom, Salaam, Peace. This is a piece that I'm trying to put myself in the position of one who would have a loved one in the Mideast right now. In particular, the children and the wives. This is like a child who is asking the major powers to guard their modesty and practice restraint and to send their loved one back to them safely and alive. And this is a message that I'm trying to convey through this tune…in the voice of a child. Although there are no lyrics right now, I intend to write lyrics later on.
Later he dedicated it to John Coltrane


Salaam, Shalom, Peace

Alaadeen, tenor sax/Harold O'Neal, piano/Seth Lee, bass/Donivan Bailey, drums/Ray Stewart, percussion
   "I wrote Grace for Butch Berman's wife…Grace. I presented it to her for a wedding present. It's about being given an extended period of time in ideal circumstances. I met Butch about 1995. He was founder of the Berman Music Foundation, a DJ and an excellent musician. We'd get together when he'd come down to Kansas City. Butch was so generous, he'd invite us out to dinner and insist on always paying. We had Grace and him over to the house for dinner once. Grace loved our pear tree...said it reminded her of home in Nigeria. But the bees on the mint plant were another thing. Neither Butch nor Grace were very fond of them."

Grace

Alaadeen, tenor saxophone/Harold O'Neal, piano/Seth Lee, bass/Brandon Draper, drums/Ray Stewart, percussion
   Alaadeen explains..."We recorded New Africa Suite in 2005. I was sitting out in the back yard. I needed one more tune. And The Beauty Of It All came into my head. I didn't have a truly real ballad...that was beautiful. The other ballad that I was writing…I was going to hit someone upside the head. I like to have seven tunes on my recordings. Seven is the number of completion...complete the way it is...significant number. It's a perfect number.  I tried to pick out all of the beautiful notes that I could muster up for this tune. You know, I emphasize the melodies. I just love playing pretty stuff….how to make things just a bit prettier. In my mind I think of beauty all the time."

and the beauty of it all

Alaadeen; soprano sax/Christopher Clarke; piano/Tyrone Clark; electric bass/Michael Warren; drums/Ray Stewart; percussion
   "The Jannah Now…that means a heaven on earth…right now. Why wait until later?"...Alaadeen

The Jannah Now

Ahmad Alaadeen - tenor saxophone/Danny Campbell - trumpet/Everette Freeman - piano/Tyrone Clark - bass/Matt Kane - drums
   "21st Century Ragg is dedicated to Ernie Williams, the last of The Blue Devils.  I wrote this piece for the 1930’s & ‘40s  band leader who we affectionately called 'Little Man'.  I also used Cootie Williams and Lester Bowie inflections. 21st Century Ragg is a good example of this approach.  I wrote in some old-style plunger-type trumpet, which is dedicated to the past and the future…like old man Cootie Williams and the young man Lester Bowie."...Alaadeen

21st Century Ragg

Alaadeen, tenor sax/Reggie Thomas, piano/Tyrone Clark, bass/Will Matthews, guitar/Donivan Bailey, drums
"Another tune I wrote back in the late '70s...originally, I called it By The Still Waters. It was played at a much slower tempo. And then we moved it up a notch and called it The Pachyderm. And now we are going to take it up another notch…here in the '90s…and call it Big 'un. It's composed for our drummer, Donivan Bailey. 
He's a big 'un."


Big'un

Alaadeen, tenor sax/Reggie Thomas, piano/Tyrone Clark, bass/Will Matthews, guitar/Donivan Bailey, drums
   "I wrote Wayne Himself for a young man who came to Kansas City a few years ago. He helped me when I was starting my band. He worked for Mid-America Arts Alliance…very impressive young man. He looked very innocent, and he could be the boy next door. But inside he had a fierce competitive personality, so I tried to capture all that in this song. I based it on a Thelonious Monk concept…somewhat."

Wayne Himself

Alaadeen, tenor sax/Tyrone Clark, bass/Reggie Thomas, organ/Willie Matthews, guitar/Donivan Bailey, drums
"One tune, Big Six, I wrote back in the '50s...maybe 1955…and I put it on the shelf. I've been struggling with the music for a long time. Big Six was the very first tune that I wrote. Yeah, boy, might be one of the best tunes I wrote, too. The reason I wrote this tune is because I had never heard Charlie Parker play anything in 6 or 3. He usually plays in 4…a fast 4…or slow...or whatever. So I had this Charlie Parker lick in my head, and I decided to compose a tune by using this lick and put it in 6/4 time. I toyed around with the name. When I first named it, I called it La Bird in 6/8.  But later I figured, in the '90s, I'll call it  Big Six…ya know, I'm a big domino fan."

Big Six

Alaadeen, tenor sax/Danny Campbell, trumpet/Will Matthews, guitar/Tyrone Clark, bass/Donivan Bailey, drums
"I wrote Blues for R.C. for my barber…RC Robinson…a very good friend of mine…and a community character. After we released that CD, I got free haircuts from RC…for life."

Blues For RC

Ahmad Alaadeen - tenor saxophone/Danny Campbell - trumpet/Everette Freeman - piano/Tyrone Clark - bass/Matt Kane - drums
'ASR is based on the chapter in the Quran by the same name.  It deals with humanity working together in patience and constancy, something that I think is a very good thing to live by and to think about.  So I adopted that as a tune and a (record) label.  The opening of the piece describes the Garden of Eden in which Adam and Eve wake up bewildered as to where they are. They slowly begin to discover the wonders of creation. The song opens with the flowing percussion of a rain stick before unfolding into a mid-tempo groove with me and Danny Campbell playing in unison.

'ASR

Alaadeen, soprano sax/Harold O'Neal, piano/Seth Lee, bass/Brandon Draper, drums/Ray Stewart, percussion
"When Love Has is a very thoughtful ballad I wrote one day when feeling needed. Fanny and I had some problems. She wasn't satisfied. I wasn't satisfied. I wrote When Love Has when we were on the outs...I broke up with the love of my life. My social life was kind of messed up. I didn't know if I would be with her again, and I was in a melancholy mood. So this sad melody came to my head, and I put it down. It seemed like I was by myself…nobody loved me. As I remember, I was thinking, when love has faded. So I didn't finish out that statement. It should have been, when love has gone away."

When Love Has

Alaadeen - tenor sax/Harold O'Neal - piano/ Seth Lee - bass/ Donivan Bailey - drums/ Ray A. Stewart - percussion
Home Again is the fulfillment of Free Man and Grace.

Home Again

Alaadeen, tenor sax/Harold O'Neal, piano/Seth Lee, bass/Brandon Draper, drums/Ray Stewart, percussion.
"Composing…it's not like you all think it is. I'm not being haunted. There's always some experience or something that happens to your life that causes you to write a song...good or bad. I get inspiration sometimes. Freeman came to me in the Blue Room when Harold came in from New York. I thought about him coming to New York City from Nigeria to escape oppression. He was a stowaway. And they discovered him down in a hole. He jumped off the boat and became a free man. Free to think on his own…within logic. It's all fantasy. I wasn't haunted. It's just the way it was."

Free Man

Alaadeen, soprano sax
Harold O'Neal, piano
Seth Lee, bass
Donivan Bailey, drums
Ray Stewart, percussion

The Burning Sand

Jazz legend Alaadeen was born in Kansas City, on July 24, 1934. Alaadeen began on the saxophone when he was in sixth grade, in time also mastering flute, clarinet and oboe. He studied at R.T. Coles High School under the tutelage of Leo H. Davis, a well-respected music instructor reported to have taught Charlie Parker. “The way he taught improvisation was to sing the melody in my ear when I soloed so I’d always keep the melody in mind.” Alaadeen debuted as a professional with Davis’ concert band playing e-flat horn when he was 14 and his first major job was playing baritone sax with the great pianist-bandleader Jay McShann. In later years he would rejoin McShann on tenor.
     Alaadeen spent time in Chicago, playing in a program led by pianist-composer Richard Abrams that was the beginning of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians); other members included trumpeter Lester Bowie and bassist Malachi Favors. He picked up a lot of experience living and playing in such cities as New York, Chicago, Denver, Houston, San Antonio and St. Louis. In addition to McShann, he had opportunities to work in a countless number of settings including stints with Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, the Count Basie Orchestra, The Glen Miller ghost band under the direction of Tex Beneke, Della Reese, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, T-Bone Walker, Claude “Fiddler” Williams and with R&B stars, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, Four Tops and Sam Cooke. 
   After returning to Kansas City, Alaadeen not only played music locally but also became a very significant educator. “I always tell my students that playing Jazz is a hard life, that it is important to always study and be current, and that they should not be afraid to make mistakes.” His skills as a teacher were recognized when he was inducted into the R.T. Coles/Lincoln High School “Outstanding Alumni Hall Of Fame.” During 1990-91, he won songwriting competitions sponsored by Billboard for his songs Big Six, Wayne Himself and Blues For R.C. Along the way he recorded with Jay McShann, Crown Prince Waterford, the City Light Orchestra and countless others. He led the Deans of Swing in the 1990s, and the ensemble was picked in 1996 as Musician Magazine’s Best Unsigned Band. 
     To document his music, Alaadeen started the ‘ASR label. Each of his CDs, which include Blues For RC and Josephine Too, Time Through The Ages, New Africa Suite and And The Beauty Of It All, features him with some of Kansas City’s top young Jazz players. He also prepared many of his original compositions for performance by large Jazz ensemble through his publishing company, Fandeen Publishing Company, Inc. In 2009, Alaadeen authored The Rest of the Story: Jazz Improvization and History, a method manual in which he shares the secrets of how he learned the music as handed down to him by the masters.
     Alaadeen was recognized in his community and state as a master of the distinctive sound known as Kansas City Jazz with his receipt of numerous awards including Kansas City's Jazz Heritage Award, the Missouri Humanities Council's Community Heritage Award, the Missouri Arts Award and Kansas City’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000 he was recognized in the United States House of Representatives for the contributions he has made to his community's understanding of its heritage and in 2002, Missouri Governor Bob Holden honored Alaadeen at an official dinner at the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City. In an effort to acknowledge Alaadeen for making a significant impact in the history, development and performance of Jazz, and to applaud Alaadeen for his outstanding achievements in the art form of Jazz, Alaadeen was issued a Proclamation from the Office of the Governor, State of Missouri. The American Jazz Museum honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.  Cancer claimed Ahmad Alaadeen's life on August 15, 2010 at the age of 76.


Alaadeen

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