While in Europe, Albert realized the value of an additional horn, especially a trumpet, to his music, and that he would not be able to keep Don Cherry, who had stayed behind in Europe to form his own band. He contacted his brother Don in Cleveland and asked him to learn the trumpet and to meet him in New York.[112] Donald had had some interesting experiences of his own.
Don Ayler: Well, I've always wanted to play a trumpet, even at the age of about 8 years old, and I was going to elementary school an' something said "why don't you play trumpet." But at that period I was really too young to know what has been said to me. Eventually, I started on alto around the ages of 16 or 17.
That was the only horn that they had in the house, my brother's horn.[113]
Like Albert, Don also studied at the Bennie Miller music school.[114]
Donald Ayler: ...[In 1963] I went over to Stockholm with a friend of mine, at the age of about 20. His name was Clyde Shy. I was going to try to further my musical knowledge and he was going to get the bass together or just his writing-he was an intelligent guy.[115]
I wanted to free my mind from America and I wanted to find my own form--not only in music but in thought and in the way I used my imagination. After four months in Stockholm, I felt my imagination wasn't being stimulated any more. And I wanted to be a free body, moving. So I went up to the North Pole. I hitchhiked three or four thousand miles to a place called Jokkmokk.[116]
...We went up to the North Pole and found out we couldn't get any work. It took us 8 days to get up there and we returned to Stockholm and I stayed in a hotel there. When I came home from Sweden I practiced for at least nine hours a day. Eventually by 1965 me and my brother were playing at a New Year's eve party and from then on we were playing together, living and playing down in the Village with this Bernard Stollman. He had gotten us a few things together for us so we could at least work. But at the time there wasn't much money to be made. You know, we were just being recognized and we had to take it no matter how much the money was.[117]
Albert Ayler: When my brother started playing with me, that's when I really started stretching out--really where it was at--because he was like, very far ahead, because on the alto, he could out-play me on the alto, man. He sat in with Elvin Jones down at Slug's, man, and Elvin Jones' Japanese girlfriend started runnin' around the club, clappin', 'cause she knew Don was gonna start playin'. See, he could play the whole chord, like that, takin' it up, (imitates sax). He could take it on up, like that. Him and Elvin Jones together, man. That was a heck of a night, you know.[118]
Only Sunny Murray remained in the group from the European tour personnel. For a benefit concert for LeRoi Jones' Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School, Ayler's group contained all Cleveland musicians, except for Murray and Joel Freedman, who was added as a last minute substitute for Cleveland altoist Charles Tyler. Tyler's plane was fogged in, in Cleveland, the night of the concert.[119]
Performance
March 28, 1965, The Village Gate, New York.
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Donald Ayler (trumpet)
Joel Freedman (cello)
Lewis Worrell (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
1.Holy Ghost
2.Saints
other pieces may have been performed, though Michael Cuscuna's research at Impulse Records found no other extant recordings from this date.[120]
1. issued on Impulse (USA) A(S)-90, HMV (UK) CLP1932, Pathe (France) 2C.154-92336, as The New Wave in Jazz, Impulse AS-9257-2 as Re-evaluation: The Impulse Years, AS-1024 as La Saga Heroique d'Albert Ayler, ASD9228 as Energy Essentials.
Time Magazine: Even farther out [than John Coltrane, who also appeared at this concert] is saxophonist Ayler. His `Holy Ghost' consists of hysterical, sizzling squiggles of sound played fast and high, while a drummer beats insistently, as though knocking on a locked door. `It's about feelings' Ayler explains.[121]
The full text of Ayler's `explanation' is "It's not about notes anymore, it's about feelings."[122]
The form of "Holy Ghost" is fairly traditional. The theme is played, preceding solos by trumpet, tenor, cello, and bass, after which the theme is reprised; there is a cacaphonic group improvisation that functions as a false ending, and a final theme statement. However, the performance itself is one of Ayler's most challenging, as far as content. This was the first Ayler recording to receive widespread distribution, through Impulse Records, and it is perhaps odd that such an abrasive, to most ears, piece would have been chosen. One would expect that one of Ayler's more conventionally tuneful works, such as "Ghosts," would have been a more successful way of introducing him to a wider audience. As it stands however, "Holy Ghost" is the most energetic performance Albert Ayler ever recorded. The theme is a one bar phrase that is repeated, gathering energy from climbing speed and register, until Don bursts into his solo.
Donald Ayler plays the trumpet as if he had never heard it played before. Though he shows a good command of traditional technique, he is only marginally interested in using it. Mostly, he creates in spurts and smears, seemingly articulated with his throat, rather than by blocking the air-stream with his tongue, as every trumpet player before him had.
On this recording, Sunny Murray is torrential, attacking his two cymbals, bass drum, two tom-toms, and snare with frightening intensity while dividing his continuous flow of percussion with moans of irregular length. He is the one who creates the climaxes in this band, where every soloist seems to be constantly climaxing. Also, as he did on Vibrations, Murray makes important use of silence. Murray drops out during Don Ayler's solo to signal that Don should end. Murray tries the same technique accompanying the tenor solo but Albert does not yield, and coaxes Murray to build up to his densest before turning the spotlight over to cellist Joel Freedman.
LeRoi Jones, in his notes to The New Wave In Jazz, advises "(No matter the alien `harmonies' Ayler's cellist presents... a kind of intrepid `Classicism' that wants to represent Europe as `hip'.)."[123] Mr. Jones is much too harsh on the man who (I'm sure with great trepidation) was the only white performer at the concert for the Black Arts. Ignoring his unknown politics, Freedman comes as close, on "Holy Ghost," as anyone ever would, to capturing Albert Ayler's style on a string instrument.
Freedman does ineffectually strum open strings during the Ayler brothers' solos, implying irrelevant harmonies, but Jones conveniently ignores the fact that Lewis Worrell (a black man) frequently does the same thing on his bass, and even does so as part of his own solo. Freedman's own solo is a slashing, scraping masterpiece, a fascinating effort by a classically trained player to operate in the area defined by those who have invented their own techniques.
Lewis Worrell, as nearly any bassist would, suffers by comparison with Gary Peacock. However, with the addition of Don Ayler to the group, Worrell's style, a dense, foggy rumbling at fast tempos, seems to fit the more frantic, less comtemplative feel.
Albert was apparently pleased with the new group, since, except for the planned replacement of Freedman with Charles Tyler, he kept the personnel the same for the next performance. His highest praise, however, was reserved for his brother.
Albert Ayler: We can get a divine harmony or a divine rhythm that would be beyond what they used to call harmony.[124]
Performance
May 1, 1965, Town Hall, New York.
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Donald Ayler (trumpet)
Charles Tyler (alto sax)
Lewis Worrell (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
1.Bells (the record of this concert is not divided into tracks. The compositions played were "Holy Ghost" and "No Name", going into "Bells".)
released as Bells, ESP (S) 1010, (Japan) BT5004,
SFX10714, also, an edited excerpt appeared on ESP 1033, a sampler record.
This brief set, played at a concert showcasing a number of ESP artists, marks an important moment in Ayler's career. While the version of "Holy Ghost" on this record is similar to the one on The New Wave in Jazz, featuring the theme, two rounds of solos by the horns, a collective improvisation, theme reprise (false ending), bass solo and a closing theme, it is less than a fifth of the length of the medley.
The medley itself is hardly one. "No Name," a themeless ballad, is played mostly as a bass and tenor duo. Then, a bugle call figure played by Albert calls in the rest of the band and "Bells" begins. Rather than a conventional song, "Bells" is a field of discourse, in which the players have a dozen short melodies available to them. Usually, Albert determines the occurrence of these melodies, leading the other horns. Don takes this role during Albert's solos.
The distinction between composition and improvisation is blurred in "Bells," as it would often be in Ayler's work from here on. The players, as they imitate each other's phrases, seem free to create these motives impromptu. For the first time in Ayler's arranging, the horns play backgrounds for each other; seldom in "Bells" is a theme not present in one of the horns. Also for the first time, at Don Ayler's instigation[125] the group plays with a march feel that is suggestive of a coming revolution, a parody of militarism, and New Orleans funeral marches.
Don Ayler: The thing about New Orleans jazz was the feeling it communicated that something was about to happen, and it was going to be good.
Albert Ayler: Yes, and we're trying to do for now what people like Louis Armstrong did at the beginning. That music was a rejoicing. And it was beauty that was going to happen. As it was in the beginning, so it will be at the end.[126]
Don Ayler: Well, a few of the songs like "Bells" I had something to do with [composing]. Basically, he [Albert] would create maybe 60% of the music, whereas I would bring in the harmony on my own, about 40/60. We would work these melodies out and it would be music.[127]
Bells is the recording debut of Charles Tyler, an old friend of Albert's.
Charles Tyler: I had met Albert when I was fourteen. I was walking down the street during one of my summers in Cleveland, carrying my alto. This guy about 19 years old with a patch of red skin on part of his chin stopped me and introduced himself and told me that he played saxophone too and started talking about music. That was that. Then, when I moved to Cleveland, I came across this saxophonist with white hair growing out of half his beard. I figured that this was where the patch of red skin was. That's how I recognized him and how our relationship began.[128]
On June 28 of 1965, John Coltrane recorded Ascension, a radical break from his past and a solid endorsement of the "New Music." The piece is a series of solos and collective improvisations by Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Pharaoh Sanders, Marion Brown, John Tchicai, Dewey Johnson, Freddie Hubbard, Art Davis, Jimmy Garrison, McCoy Tyner, and Elvin Jones. While the rhythm section functions mostly in a traditional, time-keeping manner, all the horns, especially the saxophones, use Ayler-like timbral exploration and harmonic overblowing.
Albert Ayler: After I made Ghosts and Spiritual Unity I sent all the records to Coltrane to help give him the direction. He is a spiritual brother and one that can really hear music of all different kinds. After I sent him those records, the next thing I heard was Ascension, and it was so beautiful, everything was building, everyone was screaming.[129]
John Coltrane: I recorded an album and found I was playing just like you.
Albert Ayler: No man, don't you see, you were playing like yourself. You were just feeling what I feel and were just crying out for spiritual unity.[130]
Frank Kofsky (interviewer): Have you listened to many of the younger saxophonists besides Pharaoh [Sanders]?
Coltrane: Yes, Albert Ayler first. I've listened very closely to him. He's something else.
F.K.: Could you see any relationship between what you were doing and what he was doing? In other words, do you think he has developed out of some of your ideas?
J.C.: Not necessarily; I think what he's doing, it seems to be moving music into even higher frequencies. Maybe where I left off, maybe where he started, or something.[131]
Albert Ayler: I'm encouraged about the music to come. There are musicians all over the states who are ready to play free spiritual music. You've got to get ready for the truth, because it's going to happen. And listen to Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders. They're playing free now. We need all the help we can get. That Ascension is beautiful! Consider Coltrane. There's one of the older guys who was playing bebop but who can feel the spirit of what's happening now. He's trying to reach another peace level. This is a beautiful person, a highly spiritual brother. Imagine being able in one lifetime to move from the kind of peace he found in bebop to a new peace.
Don Ayler: The most important thing is to produce your sound and have no psychic frustrations. And that includes having enough to eat.
A.A.: Yes, music has been a gift to me. All I expect is a chance to create without worrying about such basics as food.
D.A.: To give peace, you have to have peace.[132]
Coltrane helped the Ayler brothers financially, constantly talked with Albert on the telephone about music, and lobbied producer Bob Thiele to sign the Aylers to Impulse.[133]
The next performance the Ayler group played was, like the one at Town Hall, a showcase, run at a loss, to promote the new music. For this show, Lewis Worrell was replaced by the all-star team of Peacock and Grimes, and Call Cobbs was added on harpsichord for one song. Ayler had wanted Cobbs to play vibraphone, but settled for the harpsichord, when a set of vibes could not be obtained.[134]
Performance
September 23, 1965, Judson Hall, New York.
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Donald Ayler (trumpet)
Charles Tyler (alto sax)
Henry Grimes (bass)
Gary Peacock (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
1.Spirits Rejoice
2.Holy Family
3.D.C.
4.Angels (actually "Prophecy") (+Call Cobbs Jr. (harpsichord) DA & CT do not play)
5.Prophet
released as Spirits Rejoice ESP (S)1020, Explosive (France) 538.111, (Japan) SMJ7492, BT5003, SFX10713.
"Spirits Rejoice" is a long march medley, like "Bells", but it is much more carefully arranged, with harmonies for the three horns and a clearly determined order of themes. Albert takes a long first solo, followed by much shorter statements by alto and trumpet. A bass duet leads back into the theme.
Like the short version of "Ghosts", recorded with Don Cherry, "Holy Family" is all theme. Only Sunny Murray improvises on this piece, attempting, in vain, to subvert the ferocious swing of the composed horn and bass lines. The "Holy Ghost"/"The Wizard"/"Holy Holy" idiom is represented by "D.C.," based on bars 5 and 6 of "Infant Happiness" and dedicated to Don Cherry, and "Prophet," which frame the ballad "Prophecy." While there is chaotic group improvisation on these tunes, the band also shows incredible tightness by staying perfectly together as they accelerate the composed parts of these pieces.
Call Cobbs, in his first known public performance with Albert Ayler, is featured on "Prophecy," one of Ayler's best ballads. While Cobbs' harpsichord is poorly recorded, "Prophecy" remains a powerful performance, with Ayler's tenor staying close to the theme, a bowed bass laying down the bottom, and Cobbs and Murray providing high register embellishment.
Don Ayler and Charles Tyler seem to relish the ensemble playing, both thematic and improvisational, more than their individual solo spots, where their desire to avoid traditional jazz sounds leads them to narrowly limit their tonal palettes and to labor in the shadows of Albert's influence.
This was the last time Gary Peacock played with Albert Ayler. During the European tour he had discussed retiring from live performance to concentrate on composing,[135] but now spiritual and health problems, manifested in an ulcer, convinced him to move to Japan to study Zen.[136]
Peacock and Grimes collaborate brilliantly throughout this program, and are featured in duo on every piece except "Holy Family" and "Prophecy." On "D.C.," the communication between the two of them becomes so tense that the performance is brought from its loud, fast, dense beginning to complete silence during their solos. Albert was never satisfied with any of his bassists after Peacock[137] and, in his music from here on, began to use strings in different ways, with more pre-arranged roles and composed parts, depending on which players he could get.
In September of 1965, Albert, Don, and Charles Tyler decided to return to Cleveland to see what sort of an audience there was for their new music in their hometown. They played one show at La Cave, a local nightclub. Clevelanders were nonplused and the musicians returned to New York.
The rhythm section used at the Cleveland show was Don's friend, Clyde Shy, whom he had gone to the North Pole with, on bass, and an unknown drummer.[138]
Albert's last known performance of 1965 was one of his few as a sideman. LeRoi Jones financed Sunny Murray's first recording of his own compositions, with Murray's choice of performers.
Recording Session
November 1965, New York.
Sunny Murray (drumset)
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Don Cherry (trumpet)
Henry Grimes (bass)
Lewis Worrell (bass)
LeRoi Jones (recitation on 2 only)
1.Virtue
2.Black Art
3.Justice (released in 2 parts)
4.The Lie
1-3 released as Sunny's Time Now, Jihad 663. 4 unissued.[139]
This is an incredibly rare record, privately recorded and pressed. Probably only a couple hundred copies were made. In 1990 a reissue (likely pirated) was briefly available in Japan, but I have not been able to locate a copy. John Litweiler briefly describes the music in the Albert Ayler chapter of his book The Freedom Principle and, judging from this and Sunny Murray's later recordings as a leader, one can assume that this music is dense, almost wholly improvised, kinetic but ametric, in other words, energy music. However, Ayler and Cherry have the potential to go far beyond the shrill monotony that characterizes this genre, making this a session worthy of immediate reissue. Amiri Baraka has the master tape of this session, including the unreleased title.
Albert Ayler did not play his music again in public until February of the next year, when his band took a regular Monday night gig at the Astor Playhouse, a small theatre in the East Village. The group for these shows was Albert, Don, Charles Tyler, Joel Freedman (attempting to fill a bass role on the cello) and Charles Moffet on drums. Neither of the written accounts of these performances describes the repertoire or the sound of Ayler's only bass-less band, however, the review of Moffet's only appearance with Albert Ayler makes him sound, despite his success with Ornette Coleman, particularly unsuited to a free idiom.[140]
Also in February of '66 was Ayler's only public performance with John Coltrane. On the 19th, at Philharmonic Hall, the Coltrane quartet, with Jimmy Garrison on bass, Alice Coltrane at the piano, and Rashied Ali drumming, was scheduled to play a concert titled "Titans of the Tenor,"[141] also featuring the bands of Coleman Hawkins, Yuseff Lateef, and Sonny Rollins.[142] Coltrane was moving from modal playing into freer areas and often added additional players to his group at this time. Since he had tried unsuccessfully to convince the promoters of this concert to book Ayler's own ensemble, Coltrane invited Albert and Don to play with him, and paid them himself.[143] The performance consisted of one remarkable 40 minute piece, opening with Coltrane playing "My Favorite Things" on soprano sax, and moving into open space for solos by Pharaoh Sanders, then Albert, on tenors, Don on his trumpet, Carlos Ward on the alto, a duet by the Aylers, and a closing tenor solo and chant of "Om mani padme om" by John Coltrane. J.C. Moses also played drums with the band and the horns provided commentary on each other's solos.[144] An astonishing piece of music, according to those who were there, and private tapes may exist of this concert despite the policies of Lincoln Center.[145]
On the 22nd, Albert was in Indianapolis, observing an ESP recording session led by Charles Tyler and featuring Charles Moffet on vibes, Joel Freedman on cello, and a new drummer.[146]
Ronald Shannon Jackson: Then I began working for Albert Ayler. Charles Moffet took me to a recording session he was supposed to do. He didn't want to do it because he was working with Ornette, so he asked me to do it. Charles Tyler was the leader. I met him for the first time in the studio. He told me what his kind of music was. We sat down and made the record. All first takes, no second takes. That was my very first record. Never got paid. But one of the people in the studio was Albert Ayler. Now I don't know if I'd even heard of Albert Ayler; if I had, I didn't remember him. Albert comes up to me and said he liked the way I played, would I join his band. He'd just come back from Europe and was looking for a drummer. I said O.K. It didn't bother me, didn't faze me one way or another 'cause not only didn't I know who he was, but I didn't even think he was serious.
He called me. We started playing gigs together down at the Lafayette Theatre. I'd been playing by myself a lot, and I'd played with duos and trios and orchestras and choirs, but never with someone who told me to play everything I could possibly play. It blew my mind. I could try anything. All four mediums--both feet, both hands--used to the maximum, with total concentration in each one. You know, the whole set-up was so massive: the total spiritual self, which can be a million different things at one time, but trying to make it concise and particular at a given moment. It was like someone taking a plug out of a dam.[147]
Albert really opened me up as far as playing. I had never experienced totally playing before. Up until then my work had been playing background: the "ching-ching-a-ding" line, where you played like this person. You played in a groove like Blakey or Max or Philly Joe, and at that time Tony Williams was riding the crest of the jazz wave. You played like them or you weren't playing! Albert was the type of person who wouldn't say "I want this" or "I want that." He'd just say "Play! Fill it up with sound!" So from that being ingrained in me, it allowed me to just play. It was a very good experience of my life. We played together for six to eight months.[148]
Albert was hanging out [at the Five Spot] and I had gotten kind of tipsy--drunk is the word. Mingus was trying to play "Stormy Weather." Like I was saying I would walk around in Texas hearing those melodies? My father used to love to hear Lena Horne sing "Stormy Weather." I knew there were African rhythms behind that song, and I was so drunk I went up to the bandstand and told Charles Mingus to let me play the drums and he told me "no," basically to "get the fuck out of here."
I went back to where me and Albert were sitting. In the meantime, they finished what they called "Stormy Weather." But I knew I was in this room and I knew what this man was trying to do. I knew I had the key to it and I could make it happen rhythmically. I just couldn't get him to let me do it. What happened was, they took a break and Toshiko Marino was playing solo piano and a fellow [Herb Bushler] went up and started playing bass with her. I went up and started playing drums. by the time we finished the set, we had a big ovation and I heard this person clapping in my ear. It was Mingus and he told me he wanted me to come play with him. He took my number and called me the next day. That's when I started playing with him.[149]
I played with the group [Mingus'] as the second drummer for a few weeks. He liked what I was doing and wanted to rent some timpani for me, 'cause Dannie [Richmond] was his regular drummer and he knew I could play them, and he was working on some pieces and all. But Albert Ayler had gotten more work and there was a conflict. I couldn't do both. I'd already been bitten by this Albert Ayler bug--he had such presence, he could play just two notes in a club and everybody would have to stop to listen--so I went to work for Albert. Which went along fine, until Albert wasn't working for awhile.[150]
Jackson was added to the pool of players Ayler drew from to form his groups. Performances were too few, low-paying, and far between to support a full-time band of quality musicians. The Ayler brothers and Charles Tyler were the only constants and, since the themes and arrangements used were so simple and flexible, the ever-changing rhythm sections did not substantially affect the progress of Albert's music
Around this time, Albert met Mary Parks at Count Basie's jazz club.[151] She became his lover, constant companion, and later, collaborator.
Albert also spent some time in early 1966 checking out the experimental jazz scene that he had helped inspire. In March, he sat in with the Burton Greene quartet of Greene (piano), Rashied Ali (drums), Steve Tintweiss (bass), and Frank Smith (tenor). The singer Leon Thomas, who was working with Pharaoh Sanders at this time, got up, while Ayler was playing with this band, and added a frenzied vocal.[152] Greene's quartet was very controversial at the time, because, except for Ali, they were all white. Smith particularly was called a "soul thief" by LeRoi Jones for the way he aped Ayler's saxophone style. One wonders what the political meaning of Ayler's performance with this group is; whether he has come to blow away his imitators or encourage them. Jazz critic Bill Smith describes the circumstances.
Bill Smith: Just around the corner [from the Astor Playhouse] was Slug's, a lower East Side neighborhood bar. Much of the new music was being performed there. Spit and sawdust, I guess, would be a description. In NY State waiters are required by law to wash their hands after using the toilet. There seems to be no washbasin. Had gone there with Elizabeth Van der Mei [sic] and Albert [Ayler], just for a beer. The Burton Greene quartet is the music. The saxophonist is Frank Smith, a white tenor-player, sounding already so much like Albert. A musician leaps up from the audience, knife thrust forward, ready to damage the imitation, wanting only to hear the master. The truth is marching in.
By now, in New York, Albert's reputation is building strong controversy, and he will, of course, be challenged by the jazz standards. One afternoon, at the Dom, a small club opposite the Five Spot, on Saint Mark's place, the tournament will begin. Tony Scott, a liberal bopper runs the club. He has a rhythm section on this day, consisting of Henry Grimes (bass) and Eddie Marshall (drums). Pretty classy. The song is "Summertime." Albert's tenor is borrowed from Tony Scott, but the high register unison lines are crystal clear, and soon-as was often the case-he is alone, singing his beautiful song. The truth is marching in.[153]
1966 and 1967 would be the busiest years of Albert Ayler's life. The band, with the usual three horns, Lewis Worrell, and Milford Graves, performed several times at the Black Arts, in the summer of '66.[154] Also this summer, the Aylers decided to try again in Cleveland. Sources differ as to whether the concert was at WEWS[155] or WHK[156] but agree that the personnel was the Ayler brothers, Charles Tyler, Call Cobbs on harpsichord, and Beaver Harris, drums.157 Whether there was a bassist or not is also unknown. What is known, is that response to this concert was no stronger than to the one a year before. The musicians, except for Charles Tyler, were back in New York by May 1. Tyler quit the band, probably for a number of reasons, when Albert added Michel Sampson, a white classical violinist, who was in town as a guest soloist with the Cleveland Symphony,[158] to the band. Tyler was also frustrated that the jazz community saw him only as a follower of Ayler, ignoring his own style, which he had played on his own records.[159]
Charles Tyler: Albert started to change his mind about things. A lot was going on. And people started to convince Albert that he could get an even larger audience if he changed certain things in his direction. I couldn't watch that happen. So that's when we parted.[160]
Albert Ayler: We were just practising [in La Cave, a Cleveland nightclub] when he [Sampson] came in, mentioned that he had played with Ornette Coleman in Holland, and asked if he could sit in. From the beginning, we hit it off musically. Michel too is a man who has spent a long time looking for peace.[161]
The jazz avant-garde had become very race-conscious by this time. Writers such as LeRoi Jones, Frank Kofsky, and Ted Joans tried to link the new jazz with the emerging Black Power movement. Some musicians, especially Archie Shepp, supported this, but most, like Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Albert Ayler, tried to avoid the conflict by portraying themselves as concerned with music as a spiritual, rather than political expression. Coleman, Miles Davis, and Ayler were criticized for using white players in their groups, when there were black musicians out of work, while the unique qualities of these musicians (David Izenzon, Charlie Haden, John McLaughlin, Dave Holland, and Scott LaFaro, as well as Sampson and Freedman) were ignored. Certainly, in the swing and bop eras, white players such as Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, the Dorseys, Dave Brubeck, Lennie Tristiano, Bill Evans, and others had recieved far more success than black musicians of equal or greater talent. Bop itself was motivated partially by the desire of black virtuosi like Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk to create a music that could not easily be appropriated by whites, the way Benny Goodman had taken Fletcher Henderson's music. However, unlike bop, the new, free-form jazz did not obviously require great technique, relying more on the player's ability to convey passion and sincerity. Thus, white musicians in the new wave were subject to great hostility, their skin color taken as evidence of their fraudulence. Albert Ayler attempted to avoid racial matters in his pursuit of spiritual healing.
Albert Ayler: After all, this music comes from the heart of America, the soul of the ghetto.
Nat Hentoff [interviewer]: Do you feel, then, that only blackmen can play this kind of music?
A.A.: There are ghettos everywhere, including in everybody's head.
Don Ayler: What this music is, is one individual's suffering--through his imagination--to find peace.[162]
D.A.: Yes, people have to get beyond color.
A.A.: True, but I think it's a very good thing that black people in this country are becoming conscious of the strengths of being black. They are beginning to see who they are. They are acquiring so much respect for themselves. And that's a beautiful development for me because I'm playing their suffering, whether they know it or not. I've lived that suffering. Beyond that, it all goes back to God. Nobody's superior, and nobody's inferior.
D.A.: All we're guilty of anyway is breathing.[163]
A.A.: The new jazz is neither resignation or evasion of relations with Whites. It is revolt and affirmation that we are black.[164]
Perfomance
May 1, 1966, Slug's Saloon, New York.
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Don Ayler (trumpet)
Michel Sampson (violin)
Lewis Worrell (bass)
Ronald Shannon Jackson (drumset)
1.Truth is Marching In
2.Our Prayer
3.Bells
4.Ghosts
The performance is actually a continuous medley, containing themes from "Truth is Marching In," "Holy Ghost," "Infinite Spirit," "Bells," "Our Prayer," "Ghosts," "Auld Lang Sye," and three untitled themes that do not appear on any other recordings.
all titles released on In Memory of Albert Ayler, Jazz Door 1203. (in order 3,4,1,2).
1 and 2 released as Albert Ayler Quintet Live at Slug's Saloon Volume 1, ESP Base (Italy) 3031, DIW (Japan) 1001, and as Truth is Marching In, Magic Music (Germany) LP10003, and CD30003.
3 and 4 released as Albert Ayler Quintet Live at Slug's Saloon Volume 2, ESP Base (Italy) 3032, DIW (Japan) 1002, and as Black Revolt, Magic Music (Germany) LP10004, and CD30004.[165]
This album, like Prophecy, is an authorized bootleg, a tape made by an audience member. As such, the sound quality is awful, and the song titles almost completely wrong. Despite these flaws, this recording is essential. It is the only document of Ronald Shannon Jackson's work with Ayler; it shows the beginnings of profound change in Ayler's music, and it represents a structural experiment by Albert Ayler that is exceptional within his recordings.
First, Jackson, one of today's most important percussionists, is outstanding in the Ayler group. In the march-like and orchestral passages, he contributes abstractions of those idioms' cliches, supporting the similar activities of the horns. During the collective improvisations, he shows a debt to Elvin Jones, providing both kinetic motivation and polyrhythmic irritation to Albert and Don, and anticipating the march/free/funk synthesis he would perfect in the 1970s.
The strings are barely audible on this recording, though Sampson's violin can usually be picked out, and reveals fascinating detail when not covered up by Jackson's powerful drumming. For the most part, the band is horns and drums, bringing out the brass band sound of Ayler's melodies. Composed material takes up far more of the performance than improvisation does, and most of the improvisation by Albert exists as a counterline to a melody played by trumpet and violin. Don is given plenty of opportunities to play free though these are often cut off by Albert's re-entry. Albert's own free solos are sparingly distributed and, like Don's, are deployed as interludes or transitions between the thematic sections. It seems as if Albert has realized the limitations of the flat out thrashing that dominated pieces like "Holy Ghost," "D.C.," and "Prophet" and is trying to make it serve his compositions, rather than the other way around. This movement towards composition had begun with the Bells album, when the potential interest of composition and chaos of free collective improvisation had first become apparent, and would intensify for the rest of Albert Ayler's life.
Ayler's structural innovation on this date is to organize the whole show in the manner of the piece "Bells." Don Ayler, through over a year of daily rehearsals, has become so familiar with his brother's idiom that he is able to harmonize melodies instantaneously. Any theme can be introduced into the set. Though most are Albert's compositions, one of the untitled songs is a mutation of the first phrase of "The Star Spangled Banner" (3 years before Jimi Hendrix) and another is a bugle call synthesis of Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" and Thelonious Monk's "Thelonious." The group conclude their set with a surreal version of "Auld Lang Syne."
Albert leads the band from theme to theme with melodic cues on his horn, though he often lets Don take over the melody, in order that he may ad lib counterpoint. Albert controls the length of the solos, cutting Don off when he becomes monotonous, giving Sampson time to explore (as he is loudly encouraged by a member of the audience), and modestly dispensing his tenor. Sections of his multi-part tunes, like "Truth is Marching In" and "Infinite Spirit" are mixed and matched spontaneously. Though Ayler had performed medleys before, and would often in the future, this is the only example of an entire show being organized in this way.
Albert Ayler: I'm using modes now, because I'm trying to get more form in the free form. Furthermore, I'd like to play something--like the beginning of "Ghosts"--that people can hum. And I want to play songs like I used to sing when I was real small. Folk melodies that all the people will understand. I'd use those melodies as a start and have different simple melodies going in and out of a piece. From simple melody to complicated textures to simplicity again and then back to the more dense, the more complex sounds.[166]
The scream I was playing then [1964-5] was peace to me at that time. That was the way it had to go then. Whatever was inside of me, something was happening and I did not know exactly what it was. America was going through such a big change and I'd been travelling all over, seen it all, and had to play it out of me. But now it's peaceful. It's more like a silent scream.[167]
This is how Albert described the changes in his music in late 1966. In addition to these formal changes, there was also a largely new repertoire, featuring compositions with multi-part themes, harmonies, and built-in tempo changes. "Ghosts" was a prototype of this style, but the new compositions also often included improvisations after each section, in the mood of that section. "Truth is Marching In" is the first and best known example of this compositional technique, including as it does chorale and march sections, each open for soloing. It is unclear, however, what Albert meant by a "silent scream." If anything, his soloing was becoming more violent than ever. Often, like Don, he will spend his entire solo wailing the highest note he can reach, pausing only for breath. He may be imitating the sound of glossolalia, speaking in tongues, but it seems as if his scream will become silent only by escaping the range of human hearing. Improvisation, in the sense of the individual solo, even Albert's, became secondary in this period. Albert also began to attempt to explicate the meanings he intended for his songs during 1966.
Albert Ayler (regarding "Truth is Marching In"): When there's chaos, which is now, only a relatively few people can listen to the music that tells of what will be. You see, everyone is screaming "Freedom" now, but mentally, most are under a great strain. But now the truth is marching in, as it once marched back in New Orleans and that truth is that there must be peace and joy on Earth. I believe music can help bring that truth into being because music really is the universal language. That's why it can be such a force. Words, after all, are only music.[168]
Performance
May 1966 (either the 8th, 15th, 22nd, or 29th), The Village Vanguard, New York.
same personnel as May 1 show
1.Ghosts
2.Spirits Rejoice
3.Bells
4.unknown piece (probably "Truth is Marching In")
5.unknown piece (probably "Change Has Come")
6.Our Prayer[169]
Albert Ayler [on "Change Has Come"]: In my music, I'm trying to look far ahead. Like Coltrane, I'm playing about the beauty that is to come after all the tensions and anxieties. This is about post-war cries; I mean the cries of love that are already in the young and that will emerge as people seeking spiritual freedom come to spiritual freedom.
[on "Our Prayer," Don Ayler's first composition to be played by the group]: He was inspired to write it after playing "Truth is Marching In." People say it sounds like "Truth is Marching In," but not to me. It has its own very distinctive thing to say. It's a prayer to the Creator, a song about the spiritual principles of the universe.[170]
This group played once more, in October of 1966 at the Village Theatre, a show marred by a faulty sound system. The band debuted another new multi-part theme by Albert called "Light in Darkness," as their finale.[171] Ronald Shannon Jackson left the band after this show, and would quit music entirely within a year, when John Coltrane died. At the time, however, his motive for leaving Albert Ayler was not spiritual, but financial.
Ronald Shannon Jackson: ...I went for a long stint with Betty Carter and working with Albert also. But Albert's gig wasn't paying no money; we was just working. It was for the love of music. We'd get a few gigs, but nobody would come.[172]
This summer of 1966 was the Ayler brothers' period of greatest activity together. Critical reaction to their music was wildly mixed, with the only common element in most of the reviews being ignorance. The music was loved and hated for what the reviewers imagined its motivations were, without investigation of the music itself. To describe all the misrepresentations of Ayler's music that took place would take dozens of pages.
Donald Ayler: I'll tell you one time when I really did realize that I was being recognized. Louis Armstrong came up to me in this bookstore and he was carrying hundreds of dollars in his hands, he was flipping hundreds. And he told me anytime you want to do something together, get in contact with my agent, maybe we can do a tour together. "You don't just play the trumpet like `D'`D,' you don't just be playing notes, you be playing sound" that's what he said.[173]
Albert spoke as often and strongly as he could in interviews, trying to explicate his art.
Albert Ayler: For me, the only way I can thank God for his ever-present creation is to offer to him a new music impressed of a beauty which nobody had previously understood...
The music we play is one long prayer, a message coming from God...
The music which we play together will help people to better understand themselves, and to find interior peace more easily.[174]
I'm trying to communicate to as many people as I can. It's late now for the world. And if I can help raise people to new plateaus of peace and understanding, I'll feel that it has been worth living as a spiritual artist, that's what counts.
People talk about love but they don't believe in each other. They don't realize they can get strength from each other's lives. They don't extend their imaginations. And once a man's imagination dies, he dies.
Don Ayler: Everybody is afraid to find out the ultimate capacities of his own imagination.
A.A.: And our music, we think, helps people do just that. This music is our imagination put to sound to stimulate other people's imaginations. And if we affect somebody, he may in turn affect somebody else who never heard our music.
D.A.: One way not to [listen] is to focus on the notes and stuff like that. Instead, try to move your imagination toward the sound. It's a matter of following the sounds.
A.A.: You have to relate sound to sound inside the music. I mean you have to try to listen to everything together.
D.A.: Follow the sound, the pitches, the colors. You have to watch them move.
A.A.: This music is good for the mind. It frees the mind. If you just listen, you find out more about yourself.
D.A.: It will educate people to another level of peace.
A.A.: It's really free, spiritual music, not just free music. And as for playing it, other musicians worry about what they're playing. But we're listening to each other.
Many of the others are not playing together and so they produce noise. It's screaming, it's neo-avant garde music. But we are trying to rejuvenate that old New Orleans feeling that music can be played collectively with free form. Each person finds his own form. Like Cecil Taylor has beautiful form. And listen to Ornette Coleman's rhythmic form.
When I say free form, I don't mean everybody does what he wants to. You have to listen to each other, you have to improvise collectively.
D.A.: You have to hear the relationship of a free sound when it happens and know it's right and then know what the next one will be.[175]
AA: We're just screaming about life in its different channels. The true artist feels the vibrations of what he is living around and this has held true all through the past from Louis Armstrong and Lester Young up to Coltrane.
We're not screaming against the system. A man who's creating doesn't have time to hate.
Now is the time for the artist's artist. Our music is a long way from entertainment music. I'd say that Archie Shepp was playing entertainment music. Whenever you hear our music you're hearing something fresh. And that's pure art.[176]
(attributed to both Ayler brothers): Jazz is Jim Crow. Jazz is of another era, another time, another place. We're playing free music.[177]
A.A.: I believe when I talk with somebody, I must communicate to them, not seeing them physically, or anything like that. I must communicate with their spirit that comes within the soul and the heart, and if I can communicate with that-I can feel it, being an artist. Because some people, some of them come up to me and say "I love the way you play" and all of that. But it's not necessarily that they loved it; they are trying to figure out what's happening. Never try to figure out what happens, because you would never get the true message.[178]
We're not just sitting down and trying to create beauty. We're making more than pretty, melodic forms. Follow this, please. We're musicians and we're asking the whole world to listen and understand. We're all together, everybody, and there has to be peace. That's what we're saying.
You have to really play your instrument to escape from notes to sounds. you have to really play, no kidding around.
You start with a feeling. One instrument states this feeling musically, then the other musicians pick it up. We donate to each other, back and forth. The feeling grows with the music.
D.A.: It takes a strong person to play it. Take any two notes, for example. Ordinarily you play one, then the other. But for us, we have a tendency to hit both notes and everything that's in-between all at the same time.[179]
Albert Ayler had turned 30 years old in July and was beginning to feel that he would never be able to make it without the financial support of his parents and John Coltrane. A tone of bitter frustration lay beneath the surface of some of his statements to the press.
Albert Ayler: It's getting rather late now, I've been feeling the spirit for a number of years.[180]
When John Coltrane wrote the music for his album A Love Supreme, he told his mother he seen God in a dream. She worried for him, because, when someone sees God, it means they are about to die.[181] This belief is likely what Albert is referring to in the above passage.
Albert Ayler: I'm a new star, according to a magazine in England, and I don't even have fare to England. Record royalties? I never see any. Oh, maybe I'll get $50 this year. One of my albums Ghosts, won an award in Europe. And the company didn't even tell me about that. I had to find out another way.
I went a long time without work. Then George Wein asked me to come to Europe with a group of other people for 11 days starting November 3. I hope to be able to add 5 or 6 days on my own after I'm there. Henry Grimes and Sunny Murray will be with Don and me. But before I heard from Wein, I'd stopped practising for 3 weeks. I was going through a thing. Here I am in Time, in Vogue, in other places. But no work. My spirits were very low.[182]
This statement was strongly disputed by Debut Records' Ole Vestergaard, who insisted that Ayler had been notified of his award and that, by the summer of 1966, when Vestergaard sold Debut to Alan Bates, Debut had paid Ayler almost $2000 in advances, royalties, and airfare.[183] Even if this is true, which it probably is, Ayler's financial outlook was always grim. Running an independent record label, especially an avant-garde one, is no way to get rich, but it is nothing compared to the grinding poverty experienced by the experimental musician.
The European tour Albert speaks of was organized by the promoter George Wein, at the instigation of European critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt.
Berendt: I was director of the Berlin Jazz Festival then [1966] and, for months, I had tried to locate Albert. That was one of the few constant things in his life: He was always disappearing. That was part of his mystique. So, finally, I called George Wein and told him: "You must bring Albert Ayler." Of course, George is the last man you'd think of when looking for Albert but there was a kind of friendly blackmail going on between George and myself at that time: I bought his annual festival package under just one condition. He had to include one avant-garde group of my choice. The whole avant-garde of the sixties came to Europe that way, most of them wondering why George Wein--of all people--had contacted them. Albert Ayler had wondered too. It became the biggest tour of his life: thirty days--from Italy to Scandinavia and from France to Eastern Europe.[184]
However, Albert was Berendt's second choice. John Coltrane had declined the tour because of health problems.[185]
Ayler was unable to get Grimes and Murray to come on tour with him, so he took Beaver Harris, from Archie Shepp's group, on drums, and the previously unknown William Folwell, who would work with Ayler on and off for the rest of Albert's life.
Recordings from European Tour: November 3-December 2, 1966
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Donald Ayler (trumpet)
Michel Sampson (violin)
William Folwell (bass)
Beaver Harris (drumset)
November 3, 1966, Berlin Jazz Festival.
1.Ghosts
2.Bells
3.Jesus
4.Omega
5.Our Prayer
6.Alpha
7.A.C.
the above is the track listing for Relayble (Italy) 001 Live in Berlin, which I have not been able to locate. Landscape (Europe) LS2-902 Live in Europe 1964-1966 and Philology 88 Albert Ayler which are available in the USA, contain four pieces from this concert, as listed below. It is likely that the tracks on Live in Berlin are mis-titled.
1.Our Prayer
2.Ghosts/Bells
3.Truth is Marching In
4.Omega is the Alpha
November 7, Lorrach, Germany.
1.Bells
2.Jesus (actually "Prophet")
3.Our Prayer (also includes "Spirits Rejoice")
4.Spirits (actually "Ghosts")
5.Holy Ghost (actually "Truth is Marching In")
all titles released on Hat HUT (Switzerland) 3500, 2009, CD6039, and Jazz Galore (Italy) 1002 as Lorrach/Paris 1966.
November 13, Salle Pleyel, Paris.
1.Ghost I (actually "Ghosts")
2.Holy Family (actually "Infinite Spirit")
3.Ghost II (actually "Japan/Our Prayer/Holy Family") (vocal
by Albert Ayler and another member of the group on
"Japan")
all issues the same as November 7. 1 also released (in an edited version) on I Giganti del Jazz (Italy) GJ6 titled John Handy/Albert Ayler.
Nov. 15, the London School of Economics.
unknown titles (Wilmer 1997)
Unknown date. BBC "Jazz 625" program.
unknown titles (Wilmer 1997)
Alan Bates, the new owner of Debut Records, may have been involved in booking these last two shows. The group's appearance on British TV had seemed jinxed from the start, as problems with their accommodations had forced the musicians to wander the streets of London, where they could not be reached by the anxious producers. When the two half-hour programs were recorded, the music contained an absolute minimum of improvisation. Even a purely thematic recital must have been too much for 1966 England.[188] Shocked programming executives ordered it destroyed, though bootleg audio (and possibly video) copies of this continuous half-hour piece may exist.[187]
Val Wilmer: The whole event [the BBC taping] was a disaster; everyone was stunned or shocked by the music. Donald and the sound technicians were in perpetual disagreement over the positioning of microphones. The crew and some local musicians laughed out loud at the music, others were overcome by its passion. Eventually I would come to regard Albert as one of the most profound artists to emerge from the music. At the LSE though, I was still a bit puzzled, even though I wanted to like him.
But South African pianist Chris McGregor was ecstatic when the Aylers said they wanted to stay around for a while. I introduced them to Chris and his wife Maxine, who had not been in London long, and Albert and Donald moved into their flat, drummer Beaver Harris joining them. They played together and the Americans expressed a desire to stay on and work with Chris in England. But their concert promoter dismissed the idea. He said it would be "bad for their image."
My old barber friend Johnny Millington had taken over the Fiesta Restaurant and Stevie [pseudonym for Wilmer's lover] and I took the Aylers there for a meal. We gave him advance warning that we were headed there with a bunch of cats in tow, and he prepared a special meal for us. Business was slow, so he joined us at the table. After we had finished eating, Beaver started playing rhythms on the table with his hands. Stevie joined in, matching him lick for lick and anticipating the changes of rhythm. Then she began to change up the rhythms herself. Beaver's superior air was replaced by one of delight when he realized he had someone who could play. "All r-i-i-ght!" he said. Albert nodded quietly.
Someone suggested we go round to Hoppy's [photographer John Hopkins] to see if he had something to smoke. We set off, but Stevie's old car broke down on the way. Albert and Beaver joined me to give it a push-start, but the sight of two Black men and a white woman together was like a red flag to a bull to the Westbourne Grove police. We had done nothing untoward, had hardly had a drink, in fact, but were pulled over nevertheless. We were quizzed, and harassed, the Americans being asked to explain themselves. They had already had a bad experience with Immigration officials on their arrival, and I was expecting them to explode. Sensibly, they played it cool, but Stevie and I were fuming. I never saw Albert again, as it happens. Given what seemed to me then his other-worldly nature, though, I've relished the sheer ordinariness of that last memory which had him and me pushing that old "banger" down the road together.[189]
The issued recordings from this tour show Albert bringing his modular approach to its zenith. The thematic portions, which are the majority, are fairly fixed. For example, the versions of "Ghosts" from the Lorrach and Paris shows feature identical arranged sections. However Ayler keeps the music "free" by ordering these sections at will, and interspersing improvisations by various members of the group. At the Lorrach show, Folwell and Harris both are featured in brief unaccompanied solos, the only time in Ayler's recordings that either of these players is spotlighted. The musicians all seem to be in good spirits, especially at the Paris concert, which begins with an impromptu cover of Pharaoh Sanders' "Japan," in which the pseudo-Asian theme becomes transformed into a country fiddle melody via the cross-cultural resonance of the pentatonic scale. This is the only instance when Ayler recorded a composition by one of his fellow experimental saxophonists, but it is not hard to see what attracted Ayler to "Japan." The melody, like most of Ayler's, is simple, powerful, and sets the tone for the improvisations that follow. "Japan" is also the first time Albert recorded as a singer, something that would become more common in the years to come. While it is possible to see most of Ayler's vocal performances as extensions of Sunny Murray's moaning, it later becomes more difficult to find precedent in "free jazz" for what Albert does.
The tour, like the 1964 one, had its share of difficulties.
Beaver Harris: When I was over there [in Europe] with Albert Ayler, I was being paid so little that I wasn't exactly the happiest man in the world. But, I had the feeling people really did want to hear us. When we were in Paris, we were robbed and George Wein graciously came through with the money.[190]
They stopped us in England, man, that was the funniest thing in the world. We were drawing so many people & had so many people following us, when we went back to England they stopped us at the airport & made us all go in the back room and take all our clothes off. There wasn't drugs, we drank, but no drugs or anything. Maybe some cats would come along and give us something to smoke, but that band was a healthy band, we just drank too much. That's why they stopped us at the airport there, they thought we were drunk on the plane, Don Ayler standing up on his head in the plane. We were really what you would call the advance of our time. We had everything in that music.[191]