Drummer Rashied Ali, who died of a heart attack, was an important figure in free jazz, a member of John Coltrane's last bands and an invaluable contributor to Coltrane's albums Meditations and Interstellar Space.
2009, of course, marks the fiftieth anniversary of Miles Davis' seminal recording Kind of Blue but, as Mike Hobart writes, it also marks the anniversary of John Coltrane's Giant Steps.