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Albert Ayler Trio: Prophecy Live, First Visit
by Glenn Astarita
This 1964 New York City recording, now remastered and released on the Ezzthetics label, captures Albert Ayler with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray at a crucial juncture in the saxophonist's development. This performance at the Cellar Cafe marks an early, vital snapshot of a trio that would become foundational to the free jazz movement. It is a chance to hear Ayler's radical sonic explorations in their initial stages before his sound fully solidified into the intensely spiritual and often ecstatic ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler Trio: Prophecy Live, First Visit
by Mark Corroto
No jazz artist has been as polarizing as Albert Ayler. Listeners either revere him as a prophet or dismiss him as a charlatan. To some, his music is a divine revelation; to others, an indecipherable cacophony. But while Ayler's music was undeniably radical, he was no insurrectionist-- he was simply a true original. His sound was Ayler being Ayler. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1936, Ayler's life ended in mystery in 1970 when his body was found floating ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: Live Greenwich Village to Love Cry Revisited
by Giuseppe Segala
Nel 1996, quando fu pubblicata la prima edizione della sua biografia dedicata ad Albert Ayler, Spirits Rejoice!, il contrabbassista e musicologo tedesco Peter Niklas Wilson scriveva nella prefazione: “La sua musica resta controversa: per alcuni fu un profeta, per altri un ciarlatano. (...) Ayler resta oggi tanto controverso quanto esile è la base per una discussione obiettiva sul suo contributo alla musica degli anni Sessanta." Anche tra i colleghi musicisti c'era chi ne apprezzava la potenza innovativa e propulsiva e ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler With Don Cherry: 1964 Recordings First Visit Completed
by John Eyles
In 2020 the ezz-thetics label released the two-disc CD European Recordings Autumn 1964 Revisited which comprised the six November 9th 1964 radio recordings made in Hilversum, the Netherlands, by the quartet of Albert Ayler, cornetist Don Cherry, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray, “Angels," “C.A.C.." “Ghosts." “Infant Happiness" (composed by Don Cherry), “Spirits" and “No Name." That album also contained nine other recordings by the same quartet, made in Copenhagen, Denmark, in September 1964. In 2016, the HATology label, ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler / Don Cherry: Albert Ayler With Don Cherry 1964 Recordings First Visit Completed
by Chris May
It is possible that in his liner notes for this album, Brian Morton has unraveled the riddle that is Albert Ayler. Was he a genius? A hoaxer? An outsider artist before the term was coined? A person in the grip of autism? An avant-gardist who decided to become a (whisper it) populist? A religious evangelist? A leather fetishist? An out-of-his-tree stoner? The list goes on, the speculation will continue, and it is permissible to tick multiple boxes, or none. But ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: Live Greenwich Village To Love Cry Revisited
by John Eyles
When Ezz-thetics' previous Albert Ayler album More Lost Performances Revisited was released in December 2023, it felt as if it might be the label's final Ayler release; not only was it the eleventh of the series but, rather than featuring an Ayler album, it comprised recordings of significant points in Ayler's career such as his playing live with the Cecil Taylor Trio in Copenhagen in 1962, or at John Coltrane's funeral in 1967. Now comes another release that ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited
by Giuseppe Segala
Tra gli anni Cinquanta e Sessanta del Novecento, una vorticosa accelerazione spinse le arti e alimentò la creatività verso esplorazioni audaci, esprimendo personalità e individualità di valore universale. Autentico visionario, tra urlo febbrile e tenera carezza, tra ruvida e profonda adesione alle radici afroamericane e tensione verso il futuro, tra riferimenti tematici trasfigurati, inni religiosi, marce bandistiche e dense campiture di puro suono che hanno la forza dell'espressionismo astratto, Albert Ayler attraversò come una meteora il firmamento della musica neroamericana, ...
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