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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 Trio: 1964: Prophecy Revisited
by Mark Corroto
Albert Ayler is often quoted as saying “Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son, I am the Holy Ghost," referring to John Coltrane, “Pharoah Sanders," and himself. It might be better said that Ayler was John The Baptist, the musical prophet that proclaimed the coming of free jazz. Like many a prophet, his end was agonizing. Ayler drowned in the East River in 1970, after a very brief eight year recording career. Coltrane knew then what many ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler Trio: Spiritual Unity
by AAJ Staff
Whole generations of musicians and listeners experienced a dramatic and irrevocable awakening in the years after Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity came out in 1964, and the record has a certain timeless quality that makes it just as important today. The piercing emotional emphasis and startlingly voice- like qualities of Ayler's saxophone playing turn childishly simple melodies into expanded voyages of personal discovery and spontaneous invention. Bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray share an abstract, ethereal connection where norms of ...
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