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Albert Ayler: Lorrach, Paris 1966
by Glenn Astarita
This is the third edition of the original pressing by hatOLOGY records, containing re-masters of tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler's live performances in Lorrach, Germany, and live tracks recorded at the Paris jazz festival, culled from his 1966 European tour. In the liners, Peter Niklas Wilson asserts that the George Wein produced the “Newport in Europe" tour and that Ayler was given second-class accommodations, contrasting what was tendered to the likes of Dave Brubeck and Stan Getz. But it's also noted ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: Lo spirito e la rivolta
by AAJ Italy Staff
di Peter Niklas Wilson Albert Ayler e la sua musica non sono più un equivoco. Il tempo, che non sempre è galantuomo, ha reso giustizia al sassofonista di Cleveland. Non tanto perché ci fosse bisogno di levarlo dall'ombra; la centralità di Ayler non è mai stata in discussione. Il merito che va riconosciuto al trascorrere degli anni, grazie all'accumularsi di riflessioni e pubblicazioni (imprescindibile Holy Ghost, il cofanetto-monumento edito dalla Revenant), è caso mai quello di aver ricondotto ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: Stockholm, Berlin 1966
by Glenn Astarita
Indeed, a desert island quality album reissued with a digital uplift of celebrated tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler's 1966 Stockholm and Berlin concerts, where the artist resides in a very special musical space unlike any other. With his infamous slants on America's historical affinity for march music, Ayler's colossal presence and coiling use of vibrato looms as a mighty force, to complement a dynamo band featuring brother Donald on trumpet. Sadly, the Ayler brothers passed on too soon and, ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: Knocking On The Door of Astral Jazz
by Chris May
Despite everything life threw at saxophonist Albert Ayler--critical incomprehension, paucity of performing opportunities, probable bi-polarity--his music shone with light. At the time of his passing, aged 34, drowned in New York's East River, he was, said some of his friends, in the depths of depression (leading to rumors of suicide, or, more fancifully, of murder). But he was still creating beauty--still searching for music as “the healing force of the universe," to quote from one of his album titles, or ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: Spiritual Unity
by Raul d'Gama Rose
When the veracity of the history of twentieth-century art is evaluated, what will be found in the proverbial time capsule? Where will “The Music," which Jelly Roll Morton christened as jass, sit with the works that were created by important composers, ranging from Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and John Coltrane, to Thelonious Monk,, George Russell and Cecil Taylor,? This was music that gave voice to a people and redefined the cultural iconography of the century that followed. The fact that ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: New York Eye and Ear Control
by Clifford Allen
Even in a form of music as decidedly left-of-center as “free jazz," a canon of musicians and works has been built. This canon is essentially based upon easily-obtainable recordings rather than a history that falls to documents, primary sources and musical meetings that went commercially unrecorded. A case in point: American creative large ensembles of the 1960s generally start and stop with Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1960) and Coltrane's Ascension (Impulse, 1965), leaving out many valuable works.When ...
Continue ReadingA French "Exposé Sur" Albert Ayler
by Nicolas Large
At the end of the year 1970, the man who was considered the strongest personality in Free Jazz by his fans would die in mysterious circumstances.Albert Ayler had been missing from his New York home since the 5th of November and it was only three weeks later that his body was recovered from the East River. His funeral was held discretely in Cleveland (his home-town) on the 4th of December, in attendance were members of the family and ...
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