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Al Foster, the jazz drummer who played in bands led by Miles Davis<\/a>, Sonny Rollins<\/a>, Herbie Hancock<\/a>, among others, has died. Foster\u2019s daughter Kierra Foster-Ba shared the news on Instagram<\/a> and his longtime partner, Bonnie Rose Steinberg, told NPR<\/a> that he died \u201cfrom a serious illness.\u201d He was 82.<\/p>\n Born in 1943 in Richmond, Virginia, Aloysius Tyrone Foster grew up in Harlem, the second oldest of five siblings. His first musical idol was bebop drummer Max Roach, whose 1955 recording of \u201cCherokee\u201d inspired a 12-year-old Foster to begin practicing every day on the drum kit his father had previously gifted him. The budding musician got his first experience working as a studio musician on Blue Mitchell\u2019s 1964 album The Thing to Do<\/em>, which also featured a young Chick Corea<\/a>. Foster\u2019s big break, however, arrived a few years later, when Miles Davis saw him perform at a jazz club on New York\u2019s Upper West Side and recruited the drummer to join his band.<\/p>\n Foster toured with Davis until the latter\u2019s temporary retirement in 1975, and his work can be heard on live albums such as In Concert<\/em>, Agharta<\/em>, and Dark Magus<\/em>. He also played on the Davis several studio LPs On the Corner<\/em> and Big Fun<\/em> (1974). The extended jazz-funk jam \u201cMr. Foster,\u201d recorded during the On the Corner<\/em> sessions<\/a>, was named in his honor. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins had previously fired Foster from his band after their first gig together in 1968, but would bring him on tour in Europe a decade later, and even claimed that \u201cHarlem Boys,\u201d from his 1979 album Don\u2019t Ask<\/em>, was inspired by the two musicians\u2019 similar upbringings.<\/p>\n Throughout the late \u201970s and \u201980s, Foster also backed up pianists Hancock, McCoy Tyner<\/a>, and Horace Silver<\/a>. In 1978, he became one of four members in the Milestones Jazzstars\u2014a label-made supergroup that also featured Rollins, Tyner, and bassist Ron Carter\u2014and in 1985, both he and Carter lent their talents to saxophone virtuoso Joe Henderson<\/a>\u2019s The State of the Tenor, Vols. 1 & 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n Foster continued composing and performing until just months before his death, holding a longstanding residency at the Upper West Side club Smoke and sharing his last album, Reflections<\/em>, in 2022. In 1989\u2019s Miles: The Autobiography<\/em>, co-written with Quincy Troupe, Davis wrote that \u201cAl could set shit up for everybody else to play off and then he could keep the groove going forever\u2026for what I wanted in a drummer, Al Foster had it all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n