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Hasaan Ibn Ali, born William Henry Langford, Jr. on May 6, 1931 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1946 at age 15, he toured with trumpeter Joe Morris’s rhythm and blues band and two years later he was playing locally with Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, J. J. Johnson, Max Roach, and others. Based in Philadelphia, he freelanced and acquired a reputation locally as an original composer and theorist. The pianist performed with Horace Arnold in New York City in 1959, and again in 1961–62, in a trio with Henry Grimes.

According to Roach, while visiting New York, Ibn Ali went from club to club to play, and sometimes at the drummer’s home in the middle of the night continued to play unaccompanied on the piano there. The drummer routinely recorded Ibn Ali’s playing in this way when the pianist visited.

An album, The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan, was recorded on December 4 and 7, 1964, with bassist Art Davis, and was released six months later. Seven of the tracks were written by Ibn Ali. After the release of thealbum,

Ibn Ali mentored saxophonist Odean Pope, Ibn Ali had further studio sessions, with Pope, Art Davis and drummer Khalil Madi, on August 23 and September 7, 1965. Unfortunately for music posterity, the master tapes were destroyed in the fire at Atlantic’s warehouse at Long Branch, New Jersey in 1978. Pope believed that the recordings were not released by Atlantic because the label found out that the pianist had been imprisoned shortly after the sessions for drug offences. A copy of the recording was uncovered decades later; CD and LP versions were released as Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album by Omnivore Recordings in 2021.

His parents died in a fire that destroyed their home North Gratz Street on October 24, 1980. Reckless with his health, pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali who was strongly influenced by Elmo Hope, passed away in 1980 at 48 or 49. He built a reputation in Philadelphia, where he influenced musicians including John Coltrane, but he remained little known elsewhere.

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