Alvin Fielder Interview

From The Arkansas Times:

Alvin Fielder is a legendary jazz drummer from Meridian, Miss., who has performed in bands over the years with Sun Ra, Eddie Harris, Muhal Richard Abrams, Fred Anderson and Roscoe Mitchell. He was one of the original members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the pioneering Chicago avant-garde organization that the New York Times has called “one of this country’s great engines of experimental art.” In the 1960s, he returned to Mississippi to help desegregate schools (as part of the federally funded Emergency School Assistance Program) and to take over his father’s drug store. He retired from his career as a pharmacist in 2010, and will be 80 years old this year, though, as he told me, “I feel 35, and I play like I’m 35.”