Jazz Articles about Albert Ayler

About Albert Ayler

Album Review

Albert Ayler: At Slugs’ Saloon 1966 Revisited

Read "At Slugs’ Saloon 1966 Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 28, 2022

With Albert Ayler it has seemingly always been “what If." What if he had survived that plunge to his death in the East River in 1970? Setting aside the question of whether he was murdered or committed suicide, how would he have altered the course of music if he lived beyond those 34 years? At the time of his passing he had fueled a revolution both in America and Europe for free jazz. Let's not fail to remember that his ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler Quintet: At Slugs’ Saloon 1966 Revisited

Read "At Slugs’ Saloon 1966 Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 29, 2022

There continues to be as much discussion about Albert Ayler's personality and motivations as there is about the music he left us. Was he a religious fundamentalist? Was he bi-polar? Was he an attention seeker? Was he some sort of leather fetishist? The evidence suggests Ayler may have been borderline bi-polar, but as for the other questions, the answer is a resounding “No." A clue to where Ayler was coming from, and where he was going to, ...

Radio & Podcasts

Albert Ayler, Jones Jones, Jonathan Reisen & Charles Mingus

by Maurice Hogue
June 1, 2022

Two previously unreleased recordings by two of the seminal artists in creative music get sampled this time out: Albert Ayler's Revelations—The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings and Charles Mingus' The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott's. For Ayler, this was his last recorded music before he died later that year. The tapes for the Mingus release sat untouched in the Mingus Archives until now. Other new recordings sampled are the Jones Jones Trio of Larry Ochs, Mark Dresser & Vladimir ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler: Revelations

Read "Revelations" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
April 18, 2022

There are lovingly curated box sets and there is Albert Ayler's Revelations: The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings. The 5 x LP / 4 x CD set documents in full the two concerts Ayler gave at the high-end performance and visual arts facility in Provence, France in July 1970, just four months before he passed, so tragically and prematurely. Everything about the release is near perfect, from the sonics through to the hundred-page booklet which project producer Zev Feldman ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler: La Cave Live-Cleveland 1966-Revisited

Read "La Cave Live-Cleveland 1966-Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
January 24, 2022

Cleveland club La Cave, a grungy cellar which could accommodate around two hundred people, opened as a folk venue in 1962, transitioned into rock mid-decade, and closed in 1969. Along the way, in amongst such counterculture flagbearers as the Velvet Underground and The Fugs, La Cave booked a few of the bad boys of so-called “new thing" jazz, among them tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler, a Cleveland hometown hero. The 2xCD La Cave Live-Cleveland 1966-Revisited comprises just over ...

Film Review

Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz

by Chris May
September 7, 2021

Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz Submarine Deluxe 2021 There is much to like about this lovingly put together history of the so-called free jazz of the 1960s and 1970s. Over a decade in the making, the film, directed by self- declared genre obsessive Tom Surgal, is a compilation of interviews with, and archive performances by, many of the luminaries of the movement. Practically every minute of spoken- word content in the 88-minute ...

Album Review

Albert Ayler: New York Eye and Ear Control Revisited

Read "New York Eye and Ear Control Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 10, 2021

The backstory of New York Ear and Eye Control is a significant factor in the music and the direction free jazz took in the 1960s. Filmmaker Michael Snow commissioned Albert Ayler's trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray to record a thirty-minute soundtrack for a movie, “Walking Woman," he had yet to film. As explained in the liner notes, he “wanted to buy a half hour of music." Also invited to the session were trumpeter & cornetist Don ...