Albert Ayler
Encyclopedia
Albert Ayler was an American
avant-garde
jazz
saxophonist
, singer and composer
.
Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz
musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved by using the stiff plastic Fibrecane no. 4 reeds on his tenor saxophone
—and used a broad, pathos-filled vibrato
.
His trio and quartet records of 1964, like Spiritual Unity
and The Hilversum Session, show him advancing the improvisational notions of John Coltrane
and Ornette Coleman
into abstract realms where timbre
, not harmony
and melody
, is the music's backbone. His ecstatic music of 1965 and 1966, like "Spirits Rejoice" and "Truth Is Marching In" has been compared by critics to the sound of a brass band, and involved simple, march-like themes which alternated with wild group improvisations
and were regarded as retrieving jazz's pre-Louis Armstrong
roots.
, Ayler was first taught alto saxophone by his father Edward with whom he played duets in church. He attended John Adams High School
on Cleveland's East Side, graduating in 1954 at the age of 18. He later studied at the Academy of Music in Cleveland with jazz saxophonist Benny Miller. He also played the oboe
in high school. As a teen Ayler played with such skill that he was known around Cleveland as "Little Bird," after virtuoso saxophonist Charlie Parker
, who was nicknamed "Bird."
In 1952, at the age of 16, Ayler began playing bar-walking, honking, R&B-style tenor with blues singer and harmonica player Little Walter
, spending two summer vacations with Walter's band. After graduating from high school, Ayler joined the United States Army, where he jammed with other enlisted musicians, including tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine
. He also played in the regiment band. In 1959 he was stationed in France, where he was further exposed to the martial music that would be a core influence on his later work. After his discharge from the army, Ayler kicked around Los Angeles and Cleveland trying to find work, but his increasingly iconoclastic playing, which had moved away from traditional harmony, was not welcomed by traditionalists.
He relocated to Sweden in 1962 where his recording career began, leading Swedish and Danish groups on radio sessions, and jamming as an unpaid member of Cecil Taylor
's band in the winter of 1962-1963. (Long-rumored tapes of Ayler performing with Taylor's group have finally surfaced as part of a ten-CD set released in late 2004 by Revenant Records
.) The album My Name Is Albert Ayler is a session of standards recorded for a Copenhagen radio station with local musicians including Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
and drummer Ronnie Gardiner, with Ayler playing tenor and soprano on tracks like "Summertime".
and drummer Sunny Murray
, recording his breakthrough album Spiritual Unity, for ESP-Disk
Records, 30 minutes of intense free improvisation. Embraced by New York jazz leaders like Eric Dolphy
, who reportedly called him the best player he'd ever seen, Ayler found respect and an audience. He influenced the gestating new generation of jazz players, as well as veterans like John Coltrane
. In 1964 he toured Europe, with the trio augmented with trumpeter Don Cherry
, recorded and released as The Hilversum Session.
Ayler's trio created a definitive free jazz sound. Murray rarely if ever laid down a steady, rhythmic pulse, and Ayler's solos were downright Pentecostal. But the trio was still recognizably in the jazz tradition. Ayler's next series of groups, with trumpeter brother Donald
, were a radical departure. Beginning with the album Bells, a live concert at New York Town Hall with Donald Ayler, Charles Tyler
, Lewis Worrell and Sunny Murray, Ayler turned to performances that were chains of marching band
- or mariachi
-style themes alternating with overblowing and multiphonic freely improvised
group solos, a wild and unique sound that took jazz back to its pre-Louis Armstrong
roots of collective improvisation. The new sound was consolidated in the studio album Spirits Rejoice recorded by the same group at Judson Hall in New York. Ayler, in a 1970 interview, calls his later styles "energy music," contrasting with the "space bebop" played by Coltrane and initially by Ayler himself. This approach continued with The Village Concerts and with Ayler on the books ESP had established itself as a leading label for free jazz.
In 1966 Ayler was signed to Impulse Records at the urging of John Coltrane, the label's star attraction at that time. But even on Impulse Ayler's radically different music never found a sizable audience. Coltrane died in 1967 and Ayler was one of several musicians to perform at his funeral. An amateur recording of this performance exists. Later in 1967, Albert's brother Donald Ayler had what he termed a nervous breakdown. In a letter to The Cricket, a Newark, New Jersey
music magazine edited by Amiri Baraka
and Larry Neal
, Albert reported that he had seen a strange object in the sky and come to believe that he and his brother "had the right seal of God almighty in our forehead." Although it is reasonable to assume the Aylers had explored or were exploring psychedelic drugs like LSD
, there is no evidence this significantly influenced their mental stability.
n, hippie
lyrics provided by his live-in girlfriend Mary Maria Parks. Ayler drew on his very early career, incorporating doses of R&B, with funky, electric rhythm sections and extra horns
(including Scottish highland bagpipe
) on some songs. 1967's Love Cry was a step in this direction, studio recordings of Ayler concert staples such as "Ghosts" and "Bells" with less free-improv and more time spent on the themes.
Next came the R&B album New Grass
, which was generally reviled by his fans, who considered it to be the worst of his work. Following its commercial failure, Ayler attempted to bridge his earlier "space bebop" recordings and the sound of New Grass on his last studio album Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe
, featuring rock musicians such as Henry Vestine
of Canned Heat
alongside jazz musicians like pianist Bobby Few
.
In July 1970 Ayler returned to the free jazz idiom for a group of shows in France but the band he was able to assemble (Call Cobb, bassist Steve Tintweiss and drummer Allen Blairman
) was not regarded as being of the caliber of his earlier groups.
Ayler disappeared on November 5, 1970, and he was found dead in New York City's East River
on November 25, a presumed suicide
. For some time afterwards, rumors circulated that Ayler had been murdered. Later, however, Parks would say that Ayler had been depressed and feeling guilty, blaming himself for his brother's problems. She stated that, just before his death, he had several times threatened to kill himself, smashed one of his saxophones over their television set after she tried to dissuade him, then took the Statue of Liberty
ferry and jumped off as it neared Liberty Island
. He is buried in Cleveland, Ohio.
, English guitarist
/singer-songwriter
Roy Harper
, dedicated the song "One for All" ("One for Al") to Albert Ayler "who I knew and loved during my time in Copenhagen". Harper considered Ayler to be "one of the leading jazzmen of the age". In the Folkejokeopus liner notes
Harper states, "In many ways he (Ayler) was the king".
Ayler's unconventional approach to musical composition
, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, have transformed him into one of the few cult artists
in the history of jazz music. "Ghosts"—with its bouncy, sing-song melody (rather reminiscent of a nursery rhyme
)—is probably his best known tune, and is something of a free jazz
standard
, having been covered by Lester Bowie
on All the Magic
(1982), Gary Windo
, Eugene Chadbourne
, Joe McPhee
, John Tchicai
and Ken Vandermark
, among others. The saxophonist Mars Williams
led a group called Witches and Devils, named after the Ayler composition, and recorded several of his works. Peter Brötzmann
's "Die Like A Dog Quartet" is a group loosely dedicated to Ayler. A record called Little Birds Have Fast Hearts references Ayler's youthful nickname. The Art Ensemble of Chicago
recorded "Lebert Aaly .. dedicated to Albert Ayler" on Phase One (1971). David Murray
's dedication "Flowers for Albert" appears on Flowers for Albert: The Complete Concert
(1976), Solo Live (1980), Murray's Steps
(1984), Acoustic Octfunk (1994), South of the Border
(1995), and The Tip (1995) and has been recorded by Tiziana Simona and The Skatalites
. The bassist Jair-Rohm Parker Wells
produced "Meditations on Albert Ayler" with Tony Bianco on drums and Luther Thomas
on alto sax. This live trio improvisation was produced for and released by Ayler Records
on what would have been Ayler's 71st birthday.
On Sept. 20, 1996, the first Albert Ayler Festival was held at the Washington Square Church in Greenwich Village, NY. Performing that day were Gary Lucas, Amiri Baraka, Joe McPhee Quartet, Peter Brotzman- Thomas Borgmann Quartet, Joe Giardullo Quartet, Sunny Murray, Joseph Jarman, and Thurston Moore.
Marc Ribot
cites Ayler as an influence and has regularly performed his compositions. He recorded "Bells" on Shrek
(1994), "Ghosts" on Don't Blame Me
(1995), "Saints" and "Witches & Devils" on Saints
(2001) and in 2005 released an album consisting entirely of Ayler compositions, and dedicated to the ethic of collective improvisation, entitled Spiritual Unity
.
In 2005, the Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin released a documentary film about Ayler's life called My Name Is Albert Ayler. The film includes detailed interviews with Ayler's father Edward and brother Donald, as well as the only live concert footage of Ayler known to exist (of concerts in Sweden and France).
Ayler is featured prominently in the Astral Project manga by Garon Tsuchiya
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
saxophonist
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
, singer and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved by using the stiff plastic Fibrecane no. 4 reeds on his tenor saxophone
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
—and used a broad, pathos-filled vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
.
His trio and quartet records of 1964, like Spiritual Unity
Spiritual Unity (album)
Spiritual Unity is an album by the American jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler . It was recorded for the ESP-Disk label and was a key free jazz recording which brought Ayler to international attention as it was so "shockingly different"...
and The Hilversum Session, show him advancing the improvisational notions of John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
and Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
into abstract realms where timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
, not harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
and melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
, is the music's backbone. His ecstatic music of 1965 and 1966, like "Spirits Rejoice" and "Truth Is Marching In" has been compared by critics to the sound of a brass band, and involved simple, march-like themes which alternated with wild group improvisations
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
and were regarded as retrieving jazz's pre-Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
roots.
Early life and career
Born in Cleveland Heights, OhioCleveland Heights, Ohio
Cleveland Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, a suburb of Cleveland. The city's population was 46,121 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Cleveland Heights is located at ....
, Ayler was first taught alto saxophone by his father Edward with whom he played duets in church. He attended John Adams High School
John Adams High School (Cleveland, Ohio)
For schools with similar names, see Adams High School.John Adams High School is a public high school located on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is part of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.-History:...
on Cleveland's East Side, graduating in 1954 at the age of 18. He later studied at the Academy of Music in Cleveland with jazz saxophonist Benny Miller. He also played the oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
in high school. As a teen Ayler played with such skill that he was known around Cleveland as "Little Bird," after virtuoso saxophonist Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, who was nicknamed "Bird."
In 1952, at the age of 16, Ayler began playing bar-walking, honking, R&B-style tenor with blues singer and harmonica player Little Walter
Little Walter
Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs , was an American blues harmonica player, whose revolutionary approach to his instrument has earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, for innovation and impact on succeeding generations...
, spending two summer vacations with Walter's band. After graduating from high school, Ayler joined the United States Army, where he jammed with other enlisted musicians, including tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine
Stanley Turrentine
Stanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.-Biography:Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family...
. He also played in the regiment band. In 1959 he was stationed in France, where he was further exposed to the martial music that would be a core influence on his later work. After his discharge from the army, Ayler kicked around Los Angeles and Cleveland trying to find work, but his increasingly iconoclastic playing, which had moved away from traditional harmony, was not welcomed by traditionalists.
He relocated to Sweden in 1962 where his recording career began, leading Swedish and Danish groups on radio sessions, and jamming as an unpaid member of Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
's band in the winter of 1962-1963. (Long-rumored tapes of Ayler performing with Taylor's group have finally surfaced as part of a ten-CD set released in late 2004 by Revenant Records
Revenant Records
Revenant Records is a record label based in Austin, Texas, which concentrates on folk and blues. Revenant was formed in 1996 by John Fahey and Dean Blackwood...
.) The album My Name Is Albert Ayler is a session of standards recorded for a Copenhagen radio station with local musicians including Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
- Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 * Kirk in Copenhagen 1963 * Ben Webster in Denmark 1965-1971 Live at Danish Radio studios, Jazzhus Montmartre and Odd Fellow Palæet - Universal Music Denmark*One Flight Up 1964 *Sunday Walk 1969 - Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 (with...
and drummer Ronnie Gardiner, with Ayler playing tenor and soprano on tracks like "Summertime".
Energy music
Ayler returned to the US and settled in New York assembling an influential trio with double bassist Gary PeacockGary Peacock
Gary Peacock is an American jazz double-bassist.-Biography:After military service in Germany, in the early sixties he worked on the west coast with Barney Kessel, Bud Shank, Paul Bley and Art Pepper, then moved to New York. He worked there with Bley, the Bill Evans trio , and Albert Ayler's trio...
and drummer Sunny Murray
Sunny Murray
James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray is one of the pioneers of the free jazz style of drumming.-Biography:...
, recording his breakthrough album Spiritual Unity, for ESP-Disk
ESP-Disk
ESP-Disk is a New York-based record label, founded in 1964 by lawyer Bernard Stollman.From the beginning, the label's goal has been to provide its recording artists with complete artistic freedom, unimpeded by any record company interference or commercial expectations—a philosophy summed-up by the...
Records, 30 minutes of intense free improvisation. Embraced by New York jazz leaders like Eric Dolphy
Eric Dolphy
Eric Allan Dolphy was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s...
, who reportedly called him the best player he'd ever seen, Ayler found respect and an audience. He influenced the gestating new generation of jazz players, as well as veterans like John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
. In 1964 he toured Europe, with the trio augmented with trumpeter Don Cherry
Don Cherry (jazz)
Donald Eugene Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz cornetist whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He went on to live in many parts of the world and work with a wide variety of musicians.-Biography:Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and...
, recorded and released as The Hilversum Session.
Ayler's trio created a definitive free jazz sound. Murray rarely if ever laid down a steady, rhythmic pulse, and Ayler's solos were downright Pentecostal. But the trio was still recognizably in the jazz tradition. Ayler's next series of groups, with trumpeter brother Donald
Donald Ayler
Donald Ayler was a jazz trumpeter and younger brother to saxophonist Albert Ayler.Born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, he went on to work with his brother in the mid-1960s. In 1967 Donald had what he termed a "nervous breakdown", which affected his brother's life as well. In 1970 his brother's death...
, were a radical departure. Beginning with the album Bells, a live concert at New York Town Hall with Donald Ayler, Charles Tyler
Charles Tyler (musician)
Charles Lacy Tyler was an American jazz baritone saxophonist.Tyler was born in Cadiz, Kentucky and spent his childhood years in Indiana, New York City and Cleveland, Ohio...
, Lewis Worrell and Sunny Murray, Ayler turned to performances that were chains of marching band
Marching band
Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...
- or mariachi
Mariachi
Mariachi is a genre of music that originated in the State of Jalisco, in Mexico. It is an integration of stringed instruments highly influenced by the cultural impacts of the historical development of Western Mexico. Throughout the history of mariachi, musicians have experimented with brass, wind,...
-style themes alternating with overblowing and multiphonic freely improvised
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
group solos, a wild and unique sound that took jazz back to its pre-Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
roots of collective improvisation. The new sound was consolidated in the studio album Spirits Rejoice recorded by the same group at Judson Hall in New York. Ayler, in a 1970 interview, calls his later styles "energy music," contrasting with the "space bebop" played by Coltrane and initially by Ayler himself. This approach continued with The Village Concerts and with Ayler on the books ESP had established itself as a leading label for free jazz.
In 1966 Ayler was signed to Impulse Records at the urging of John Coltrane, the label's star attraction at that time. But even on Impulse Ayler's radically different music never found a sizable audience. Coltrane died in 1967 and Ayler was one of several musicians to perform at his funeral. An amateur recording of this performance exists. Later in 1967, Albert's brother Donald Ayler had what he termed a nervous breakdown. In a letter to The Cricket, a Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
music magazine edited by Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka , formerly known as LeRoi Jones, is an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism...
and Larry Neal
Larry Neal
Larry Neal or Lawerence Neal was a scholar of African-American theatre. He is well known for his contributions to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Biography:...
, Albert reported that he had seen a strange object in the sky and come to believe that he and his brother "had the right seal of God almighty in our forehead." Although it is reasonable to assume the Aylers had explored or were exploring psychedelic drugs like LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
, there is no evidence this significantly influenced their mental stability.
The Final Years
For the next two and half years Ayler turned to recording music not too far removed from rock and roll, often with utopiaUtopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n, hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
lyrics provided by his live-in girlfriend Mary Maria Parks. Ayler drew on his very early career, incorporating doses of R&B, with funky, electric rhythm sections and extra horns
Horn section
In music, a horn section can refer to several groups of musicians. It can refer to the musicians in a symphony orchestra who play the horn . In a British-style brass band it refers to the tenor horn players. In popular music, it can also refer to a small group of wind instrumentalists who augment a...
(including Scottish highland bagpipe
Great Highland Bagpipe
The Great Highland Bagpipe is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland. It has achieved widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world. It is closely related to the Great Irish Warpipes....
) on some songs. 1967's Love Cry was a step in this direction, studio recordings of Ayler concert staples such as "Ghosts" and "Bells" with less free-improv and more time spent on the themes.
Next came the R&B album New Grass
New Grass
New Grass is a 1968 album by jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler released on Impulse! Records.The album mixed Ayler's vocals and tenor saxplaying with elements from R&B and other genres, including a soul horn section, backing singers, rock electric bass, and boogaloo drumming...
, which was generally reviled by his fans, who considered it to be the worst of his work. Following its commercial failure, Ayler attempted to bridge his earlier "space bebop" recordings and the sound of New Grass on his last studio album Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe
Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe
Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe is a 1969 studio album by Albert Ayler, written by Ayler's partner, Mary Maria Parks. This was Ayler's last album recorded before his presumed suicide in November 1970...
, featuring rock musicians such as Henry Vestine
Henry Vestine
Henry Charles Vestine a.k.a. "The Sunflower", was an American guitar player known mainly as a member of the band Canned Heat. He was with the group from its start in 1966 to July 1969...
of Canned Heat
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...
alongside jazz musicians like pianist Bobby Few
Bobby Few
Bobby Few is an American jazz pianist.Few was raised in Shaker Heights, a neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, and studied classical piano. He knew Albert Ayler as a youth, and the pair studied jazz and played together in high school...
.
In July 1970 Ayler returned to the free jazz idiom for a group of shows in France but the band he was able to assemble (Call Cobb, bassist Steve Tintweiss and drummer Allen Blairman
Allen Blairman
Allen Blairman is an American jazz drummer best known for his collaboration with Albert Ayler and Mal WaldronAllen Blairman is living in Heidelberg, Germany since 1971.-Career:...
) was not regarded as being of the caliber of his earlier groups.
Ayler disappeared on November 5, 1970, and he was found dead in New York City's East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
on November 25, a presumed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. For some time afterwards, rumors circulated that Ayler had been murdered. Later, however, Parks would say that Ayler had been depressed and feeling guilty, blaming himself for his brother's problems. She stated that, just before his death, he had several times threatened to kill himself, smashed one of his saxophones over their television set after she tried to dissuade him, then took the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
ferry and jumped off as it neared Liberty Island
Liberty Island
Liberty Island is a small uninhabited island in New York Harbor in the United States, best known as the location of the Statue of Liberty. Though so called since the turn of the century, the name did not become official until 1956. In 1937, by proclamation 2250, President Franklin D...
. He is buried in Cleveland, Ohio.
Influence and legacy
On his 1969 album FolkjokeopusFolkjokeopus
Folkjokeopus is the third album issued by English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Roy Harper. It was produced by Shel Talmy and was first released in 1969 by Liberty Records.-History:...
, English guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
/singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Roy Harper
Roy Harper
Roy Harper is an English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since the mid 1960s...
, dedicated the song "One for All" ("One for Al") to Albert Ayler "who I knew and loved during my time in Copenhagen". Harper considered Ayler to be "one of the leading jazzmen of the age". In the Folkejokeopus liner notes
Liner notes
Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...
Harper states, "In many ways he (Ayler) was the king".
Ayler's unconventional approach to musical composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, have transformed him into one of the few cult artists
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
in the history of jazz music. "Ghosts"—with its bouncy, sing-song melody (rather reminiscent of a nursery rhyme
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
)—is probably his best known tune, and is something of a free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
, having been covered by Lester Bowie
Lester Bowie
Lester Bowie was an American jazz trumpet player and composer. He was a member of the AACM, and cofounded the Art Ensemble of Chicago.-Biography:...
on All the Magic
All the Magic
All the Magic is the second album by Lester Bowie recorded for ECM. It was released in 1982 as a double LP with the first disc consisting of band performances and a second disc of solo trumpet improvisations by Bowie.-Reception:...
(1982), Gary Windo
Gary Windo
Gary Windo was a jazz tenor saxophonist.He came from a musical family in England and by age six took up drums and accordion, then guitar at 12, and finally saxophone at 17. He lived in the United States in the 1960s, but returned to England in 1969...
, Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne is an American improvisor, guitarist and banjoist. Highly eclectic and unconventional, Chadbourne's most formative influence is free jazz. He has also been a reviewer for Allmusic and a contributor to Maximum RocknRoll.Chadbourne started out playing rock and roll guitar, but...
, Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist born in Miami, Florida, a player of tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, the trumpet, flugelhorn and valve trombone...
, John Tchicai
John Tchicai
John Martin Tchicai is a Danish jazz saxophonist. He was one of the earliest European free jazz musicians. He is of Danish and Congolese descent....
and Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark is an American jazz composer and saxophone and clarinet player.A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate...
, among others. The saxophonist Mars Williams
Mars Williams
Mars Williams is an American jazz and rock saxophonist. Originally a ten year classical clarinetist after being exposed to Big Band and Dixieland Jazz by his trumpet playing father, Mars migrated to the saxophone in his senior year of high school, citing influences from Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane...
led a group called Witches and Devils, named after the Ayler composition, and recorded several of his works. Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough, lyrical timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings.-Early life:...
's "Die Like A Dog Quartet" is a group loosely dedicated to Ayler. A record called Little Birds Have Fast Hearts references Ayler's youthful nickname. The Art Ensemble of Chicago
Art Ensemble of Chicago
The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz ensemble that grew out of Chicago's AACM in the late 1960s. The group continues to tour and record through 2006, despite the deaths of two of the founding members....
recorded "Lebert Aaly .. dedicated to Albert Ayler" on Phase One (1971). David Murray
David Murray (jazz musician)
David Murray is an American jazz musician. Murray plays mainly tenor saxophone and sometimes bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s.-Biography:...
's dedication "Flowers for Albert" appears on Flowers for Albert: The Complete Concert
Flowers for Albert: The Complete Concert
Flowers for Albert is the second album by David Murray. It was originally released on the India Navigation label in 1976 and re-released in 1996 with three additional tracks...
(1976), Solo Live (1980), Murray's Steps
Murray's Steps
Murray's Steps is the fifth album by David Murray to be released on the Italian Black Saint label and the third to feature his Octet. It was released in 1982 and features performances by Murray, Henry Threadgill, Bobby Bradford, Lawrence "Butch" Morris, Craig Harris, Curtis Clark, Wilber Morris and...
(1984), Acoustic Octfunk (1994), South of the Border
South of the Border (David Murray album)
South of the Border is an album by the David Murray Big Band released on the Japanese DIW label. Recorded in 1992 and released in 1993 the album features performances by Murray, Rasul Siddik, James Zoller, Hugh Ragin, Craig Harris, Frank Lacy, Al Patterson, Vincent Chancey, Kalil Henry, John...
(1995), and The Tip (1995) and has been recorded by Tiziana Simona and The Skatalites
The Skatalites
The Skatalites are a ska band from Jamaica. They played initially between 1963 and 1965, and recorded many of their best known songs in the period, including "Guns of Navarone". They also played on records by Prince Buster and backed many other Jamaican artists who recorded during that period...
. The bassist Jair-Rohm Parker Wells
Jair-Rohm Parker Wells
Jair-Rôhm Parker Wells is an American free jazz bassist , composer and conceptualist. He is one of the founding members of the improvising band Machine Gun which featured Thomas Chapin...
produced "Meditations on Albert Ayler" with Tony Bianco on drums and Luther Thomas
Luther Thomas
thumb|right|upright=2|Dizzazz in June 1981. From left to right : Luther Thomas , Danny Petroni , Donald Nicks , Marvin Neal , Warren Benbow , John K. Mulkerin and Billy "Spaceman" Paterson...
on alto sax. This live trio improvisation was produced for and released by Ayler Records
Ayler Records
Ayler Records is a record label which specializes in free jazz and improvised music recordings.Founded in 2000 in Sweden by Jan Ström and painter Åke Bjurhamn, it has gained recognition among free jazz fans over the years by releasing both archive and contemporary recordings from artists as diverse...
on what would have been Ayler's 71st birthday.
On Sept. 20, 1996, the first Albert Ayler Festival was held at the Washington Square Church in Greenwich Village, NY. Performing that day were Gary Lucas, Amiri Baraka, Joe McPhee Quartet, Peter Brotzman- Thomas Borgmann Quartet, Joe Giardullo Quartet, Sunny Murray, Joseph Jarman, and Thurston Moore.
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
cites Ayler as an influence and has regularly performed his compositions. He recorded "Bells" on Shrek
Shrek (album)
Shrek is a 1994 album by Marc Ribot. It was recorded at Low Blood Studios in New York City and released on the Japanese Avant label.-Reception:...
(1994), "Ghosts" on Don't Blame Me
Don't Blame Me (album)
Don't Blame Me is a 1995 album of solo guitar recorded by Marc Ribot and released on the Japanese DIW label. It features several interpretations of jazz standards, showtunes, and modern jazz compositions as well as three improvisations by Ribot.-Reception:...
(1995), "Saints" and "Witches & Devils" on Saints
Saints (Marc Ribot album)
Saints is a 2001 album of solo guitar recorded by Marc Ribot. It features several interpretations of compositions by Albert Ayler, as well as traditional spirituals, jazz standards, showtunes, and a song by The Beatles.-Reception:...
(2001) and in 2005 released an album consisting entirely of Ayler compositions, and dedicated to the ethic of collective improvisation, entitled Spiritual Unity
Spiritual Unity (Marc Ribot album)
Spiritual Unity is a 2005 album by Marc Ribot released on Pi Records. The album features compositions by Albert Ayler who Ribot identifies as a significant influence...
.
In 2005, the Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin released a documentary film about Ayler's life called My Name Is Albert Ayler. The film includes detailed interviews with Ayler's father Edward and brother Donald, as well as the only live concert footage of Ayler known to exist (of concerts in Sweden and France).
Ayler is featured prominently in the Astral Project manga by Garon Tsuchiya
Garon Tsuchiya
, also known by the name of and marginal , started his manga story career in 1979.In 1986, completed his first major works in collaboration with Akyo Makata, in Ahomansu and Meisouou Boodaa. Afterwards, Tsuchiya collaborated with draftsman Kaiji Kawaguchi for the title, Tokishozo Disturbs and...
.
Discography
| Year | Album | Label | Notes | Live/studio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 | Something Different!!!!! (aka The First Recordings Vol. 1) | (Bird Notes) (Sweden) | ||
| 1962 | The First Recordings, Vol. 2 | (Bird Notes) (Sweden) | ||
| 1963 | My name is Albert Ayler | Delmark Records Delmark Records Delmark Records is an independent American jazz and blues record label, based in Chicago since 1958. The label originated in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1953 when owner Bob Koester released a recording of the Windy City Six, a traditional jazz group, under the "Delmar" imprint.-History:Born in 1932 in... |
||
| 1964 | Spirits (aka Witches & Devils) | Delmark/Freedom Records Freedom Records Freedom Records was a jazz record label linked with the producer Alan Bates, as with his Black Lion Records.Individual recordings were distributed via Polydor Records and Transatlantic Records during the early 1970s before the company was bought by Arista Records.-Discography:*1000 Albert Ayler &... |
||
| 1964 | Goin' Home (aka Swing low sweet spiritual) | Black Lion Records Black Lion Records Black Lion Records was a jazz record label based in London, England.Black Lion was founded by Alan Bates in 1968. The label had two series of releases, one for British jazz musicians and one for international musicians... /Osmosis Records |
||
| 1964 | Prophecy | ESP | Live | |
| 1964 | Albert Smiles With Sunny | Inrespect Records | Live | |
| 1964 | Spiritual Unity | ESP | ||
| 1964 | New York Eye And Ear Control New York Eye and Ear Control New York Eye and Ear Control is an album of group improvisations recorded by an augmented version of Albert Ayler's group to provide the soundtrack for Michael Snow's film of the same name.... |
ESP | ||
| 1964 | Albert Ayler | Philology Jazz Records | Live | |
| 1964 | The Copenhagen Tapes | (Ayler Records Ayler Records Ayler Records is a record label which specializes in free jazz and improvised music recordings.Founded in 2000 in Sweden by Jan Ström and painter Åke Bjurhamn, it has gained recognition among free jazz fans over the years by releasing both archive and contemporary recordings from artists as diverse... ) (Sweden) (p) |
||
| 1964 | Ghosts (aka Vibrations) | Debut / Freedom Records | ||
| 1964 | The Hilversum Session | DIW Records DIW Records DIW Records is a Japanese record label. It is a subsidiary label of Disc Union and specializes in jazz and avant garde music. Kazunori Sugiyama was an executive producer for the label before starting Tzadik Records with John Zorn.-Discography:... |
||
| 1965 | Bells | ESP | Live | |
| 1965 | Spirits Rejoice | ESP | ||
| 1965 | Sonny's Time Now | (Jihad) (US) | ||
| 1966 | At Slug's saloon, vol. 1 & 2 | ESP | Live | |
| 1966 | Lörrach / Paris 1966 | (hat HUT) (Switzerland) (p) | Live | |
| 1966 | In Greenwich Village Albert Ayler in Greenwich Village Albert Ayler In Greenwich Village is a 1967 live album by free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler. It was his first album for Impulse! Records, and is regarded as probably being his best album on that label.... |
Impulse! Records Impulse! Records Impulse! Records was an American jazz record label, originally established in 1960 by producer Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records, based in New York City... |
Live | |
| 1967 | Love Cry Love Cry Love Cry is a 1968 album by jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler released on Impulse! Records.-Tracklisting:#Love Cry 3:54#Ghosts 2:45# Omega 3:14# Dancing Flowers 2:19# Bells 3:07# Love Flower 3:30# Love Cry ? 7:13# Zion Hill 4:13... |
Impulse! | Studio | |
| 1968 | New Grass New Grass New Grass is a 1968 album by jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler released on Impulse! Records.The album mixed Ayler's vocals and tenor saxplaying with elements from R&B and other genres, including a soul horn section, backing singers, rock electric bass, and boogaloo drumming... |
Impulse! | Studio | |
| 1969 | Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe is a 1969 studio album by Albert Ayler, written by Ayler's partner, Mary Maria Parks. This was Ayler's last album recorded before his presumed suicide in November 1970... |
Impulse! | Studio | |
| 1969 | The Last Album The Last Album The Last Album was the last studio album Albert Ayler released before his death in 1970. The album was released in 1969 on Impulse! Records. The album Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe was also recorded during the sessions for this album... |
Impulse! | Studio | |
| 1970 | Nuits de la Fondation Maeght Vol. 1 Nuits de la Fondation Maeght Vol. 1 Nuits de La Fondation Maeght is an album by the American jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler .-Volume 1:# "In Heart Only" – 5:16# "Spirits " – 15:05# "Holy Family" – 11:44# "Spirits Rejoice" – 7:26-Volume 2:... |
(Shandar Shandar Shandar was a French record label specializing in avant-garde material that did seminal work during the 1970 releasing, among others, recordings by Albert Ayler, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Sunny Murray, Philip Glass, Charlemagne Palestine, La Monte Young, Alan Silva, Pandit Pran Nath,... ) (France) (p) |
||
| 1970 | Albert Ayler Quintet 1970 | (Blu Jazz) (Italy) (p) (re-released as Live On The Riviera (ESP) (US)) | Live | |
| 2004 | Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962-70) Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962-70) Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings is a compilation album by avant-garde saxophonist Albert Ayler released by Revenant Records in 2004... |
Revenant Records Revenant Records Revenant Records is a record label based in Austin, Texas, which concentrates on folk and blues. Revenant was formed in 1996 by John Fahey and Dean Blackwood... |
9CD featuring Ayler’s first and last recordings, plus other previously unreleased material. | |
| 2006 | The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings | ESP |
External links
- Albert Ayler: His Life and Music (e-book by Jeff Schwartz, 1992)
- Albert Ayler
- Albert Ayler, in German language.
- Albert Ayler Discography Project
- Albert Ayler at NPR Music