The avant garde free-funk drummer, flautist and composer, Ronald Shannon Jackson, died on the morning of 18 October in Fort Worth at the age of 73. He had been suffering from leukaemia, according to reports. Best known for his work with Ornette Coleman's Prime Time and his own group the Decoding Society, Jackson, like Coleman, was born in Fort Worth, Texas. As a teenager Jackson gigged with saxophonist James Clay and then attended Lincoln University in Missouri, later studying history at the university of Bridgeport in Connecticut, among other studies, and later music at New York University. He became part of the New York avant garde scene from the late-1960s until well into the 1970s, and recorded with Charles Tyler and famously Albert Ayler. He became a Buddhist introduced to the faith by Buster Williams and in the mid-1970s joined Ornette Coleman's free funk band Prime Time appearing on the seminal Dancing in Your Head and Body Meta albums, and he also recorded with Cecil Taylor on a number of albums including One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye. Jackson’s own band The Decoding Society blended avant music, rock and world music also folding in the harmolodics he knew from playing with Ornette sometimes doubling instrumentation. While wild and experimental it had a bluesy core and attracted new audiences from the rock scene as well as stimulating jazz audiences. The band’s personnel changed many times but its members included Vernon Reid, Bern Nix, Billy Bang, David Fiuczynski, Jef Lee Johnson, and Khan Jamal. With harmolodic blues guitarist James Blood Ulmer Jackson found a new lease of life especially on such work as the acclaimed Are You Glad to Be in America? and in the mid-1980s with Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brötzmann and Bill Laswell formed the influential Last Exit. In more recent years Jackson joined Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet and played with the Punk Funk All Stars, as well as touring with The Last Poets. Jackson had a heart attack in 2011 in Germany and yet the following year recovered sufficiently to continue to perform.