Jazz Articles about Albert Ayler

About Albert Ayler

Album Review

Albert Ayler: Live Greenwich Village To Love Cry Revisited

Read "Live Greenwich Village To Love Cry Revisited" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
July 3, 2024

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 ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler: Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited

Read "Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
January 15, 2024

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, ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler Quintet: Lost Performances 1966 Revisited

Read "Lost Performances 1966 Revisited" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 22, 2023

These works offer a compelling glimpse into the avant-garde jazz landscape of the mid-1960s via saxophonist Albert Ayler's furiously executed phrasings, coated with spiritual intent during his tour of northern Europe. Ayler's work during this period often encapsulated the raw, expressive power and unrestrained improvisational style that defined his music.Ayler's quintet, amid his collaboration with other musicians and group formats, is known for its unconventional approach to jazz, delivering a cacophony of passionate and free-form expressions. Expect an ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler: More Lost Performances Revisited

Read "More Lost Performances Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
November 15, 2023

A state-of-the-art sonic restoration of obscure but historically important Albert Ayler material by Switzerland's ezz-thetics label, which with its parent label, Hat Hut, has been creating an audiophile archive of Ayler recordings with the support of his estate since 1978. All too often, “more" in an album title means “Beware: barrel scraping in progress." Not in this case. More Lost Performances Revisited is primetime Ayler. The disc draws from three sources over a five-year timespan. The earliest ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler: Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited

Read "Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
April 2, 2023

This landmark reissue contains consummately remastered cuts of the killer (among killers) track from Albert Ayler's relatively unknown My Name Is Albert Ayler (Debut 1964) plus the justly celebrated Spiritual Unity (ESP-Disk, 1965) in its entirety. Summertime To Spiritual Unity Revisited starts with “Summertime" from the 1964 album. In his survey The Jazz Standards (Oxford University Press, 2012), Ted Gioia writes that over 400 jazz covers of George and Ira Gershwin's song were recorded in the 1950s ...

Book Review

Holy Ghost: The Life & Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler

by Matt Marshall
November 15, 2022

Holy Ghost: The Life & Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler Richard Koloda 312 Pages ISBN: #9781911036937 Jawbone Press 2022 There's a special enthusiasm in the Cleveland, Ohio, jazz orbit for avant-garde saxophonist Albert Ayler—an insistent push to celebrate, memorialize, canonize a legend thought to be unjustly forgotten by his hometown—that isn't seen for, say, Tadd Dameron or Jim Hall. (Leading this charge is New Ghosts, a three-man team dedicated to presenting ...

Radio & Podcasts

Avant Hard

by Patrick Burnette
September 8, 2022

Mike drags Pat out of his blanket fort for close encounters with a couple heavy hitters of the avant-garde, a Chicago legend who doesn't believe in intonation, and a tribute to that legend that gets celestial from time to time. In pop matters Mike talks about a little known jazz short film from the fifties and Pat gets totally tubular. Playlist Discussion of Albert Ayler's album Holy Ghost: Rare and Unreleased Recordings (Revenant) 6:42 Discussion of Cecil Taylor's ...