When Albert Ayler returned to the United States, he settled in New York, where he was performing at the Take Three club with the same Cecil Taylor combo that he had returned with from Europe. Bassist Henry Grimes, who had been omitted from the touring group due to financial concerns, returned to the band at this time. During this engagement, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy, who were admirers of Taylor's, and were playing together at the nearby Village Gate, often saw the band. Albert took advantage of the New York jazz scene to sit in with other musicians as often as he could.[54] It was on one of these occasions that he met Bernard Stollman, who would be very important in most of the rest of his career. Ayler was jamming at the Baby Grand on 125th Street, with Elmo Hope and Richard Davis (though Davis denies that he was there, and later played with Ayler very successfully on at least one occasion.).
Bernard Stollman: Near the end of the concert this little guy with what seemed like a huge horn jumped on the stage and started blowing. He had a black and grey beard and a leather suit, and he just blew...man, torrents of sound. Elmo closed the piano and Davis parked his bass, and Albert played for 20 minutes.
This amazing solo performance so moved Stollman, an attorney who had never before even owned a stereo, that he introduced himself to Ayler, by saying "I'm starting a record company-will you be my first artist?"[55]
It would be a year and a half before Albert Ayler would make his first record for Bernard Stollman's ESP Records and, in mid-1963, the lack of work for the Cecil Taylor band forced Ayler to return to his family in Cleveland.[56] On his return, his musical innovations motivated local saxophonists Frank Wright, at the time a bassist, and Donald Strickland (who would later take the name Mustafa Abdul Rahim) to imitate him (Wilmer 1997). Also, his childhood friend Earle Henderson switched from piano to bass, in order to develop a style that would compliment Ayler's.[57] Albert had brought 50 copies of his first record home, and would attempt to sell them on the street corner, with little success.[58] Life in Cleveland soon grew uninteresting and, when the opportunity to live in a house his aunt owned, on St. Nicholas Avenue, in Harlem, with collaborators Henderson and Charles Tyler (alto sax) nearby, presented itself, (Wilmer 1997)[59] Albert moved. It was also at this time that Albert distanced himself from the Baptist church in which he was raised and began to form his own mystic system, centering on his art.
Albert Ayler: My music is the thing that keeps me alive now. I must play music that is beyond this world. If I can just hum my tunes and live like, say, [Thelonious] Monk does, live a complete life like that, just humming tunes, writing tunes and being away from everything-if I could do this, it would just carry me back to where I came from. That's all I'm asking for in life and I don't think you can ask for more than just to be alone and create from what God gives you. Because, you know, I'm getting my lessons from God. I've been through all the other things and so I'm trying to find more and more peace all the time.[60]
In December of 1963, these Cleveland musicians began visiting Ornette Coleman, who was in self-imposed retirement at the time, experimenting with new ideas. Two jam sessions including Ayler and Coleman exist on private tapes, probably in Coleman's possession. The first features Albert on his usual tenor sax, Fred Lyman on banjo, an unknown bassist, and Ornette playing trumpet and violin, his first known performance on these instruments.[61] It is likely that Ayler's technique on the saxophone inspired Coleman's approach on violin and trumpet[62] which eschews normal techniques to produce sounds that, like Albert's playing, defy Western notions of "music."
Before his next session with Ornette, Albert played one last show with Cecil Taylor.[63] The band with Murray, Grimes, and Lyons played with the Coltrane quartet and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers New Year's Eve at Lincoln Center, playing a set of Taylor compositions: "In Fields," "Octagonal Skirt," and "Fancy Pants." The Taylor Unit played second, after Coltrane's band, who had played first so that they could have as much time on stage as they wanted.[64] While no recordings of Ayler and Taylor together have been issued, or are listed in discographies, it is assumed that Cecil Taylor has some.[65]
Ayler's second jam with Ornette Coleman, like the first one, took place at Coleman's home. It was recorded by someone known only from Val Wilmer's description of him as a "Rich White Friend" of Coleman. The players included this anonymous Anglo on guitar, Charles Tyler on C-melody sax, Norman Butler on alto sax, Earle Henderson on bass, Ornette on trumpet, and Albert, as usual, playing tenor. [66]. Wilmer has since identified "RWF" as Fred Lyman, but the whereabouts (or survival) of this recording, like the earlier Coleman/Ayler session, is mysterious (Wilmer 1997).
On January 14, 1964, Albert married Arlene Benton. They later had a daughter, Desiree.[67] Little other information is available, and I do not wish to probe too deeply into the Aylers' private life. Albert and Arlene separated sometime before February 1966, when he began seeing Mary Parks. I have not been able to find out where their wedding was, whether Arlene lived in Cleveland or New York, when Desiree was born, or if a divorce was ever sought or granted.
Recording Session
February 24, 1964, Atlantic Studios, New York.
Albert Ayler (soprano sax)
Call Cobbs Jr. (piano)
Henry Grimes (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
1.Goin' Home (HG and SM out)
2.Old Man River
3.Old Man River (alternate take)
4.Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen (HG and SM out)
5.When The Saints Go Marching In
6.Swing Low, Sweet Spiritual (actually "Swing Low Sweet Chariot")
7.Deep River
8.Down By The Riverside
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Henry Grimes (bass)
Earle Henderson (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
Norman Howard (trumpet)
9.Spirits (EH out)
10.Witches And Devils
11.Holy, Holy (HG out)
12.Saints (EH out)
1-7 released as Swing Low Sweet Spiritual on Osmosis (Holland) 4001, DIW (Japan) 1021
9-12 released as Spirits, or Witches and Devils on Debut (Holland) 140, Transatlantic (UK) TRA130, Polydor (UK) 2383.089, Freedom (France) FLP40101, (Germany) 28.424, (Japan) PA7030, Arista/Freedom (USA) AL1018, Black Lion (Europe) 65601[68]
This session marks a number of "firsts" for Ayler. He is working with keyboardist Call Cobbs, who would stay with him longer than any other player. Cobbs was a fellow transplant to New York from Cleveland, but only met Ayler when he moved into Albert's aunt's building in New York.[69]
Call Cobbs: She knew I was a musician and she wanted me to meet her relative. Albert said "I hear you play piano," and his aunt, who played piano also, had a baby grand so I played some things for him. He said "That's beautiful."
He didn't have his horn with him at the time, so a few days later he brought it over and he played. I will say that when he first played, I had never played free music before and it was odd, but I could look at him and the way he was playing and I knew that he knew what he was doing. And I felt something.[70]
Norman Howard, who was a lifelong associate of Ayler's, is another Clevelander, making his only appearance with Ayler on this album (Wilmer 1997).[71] It was also the first time Ayler had worked with two bassists.
Albert Ayler: The point of having two basses is that thereby you can go in two different harmonic directions, which are, however, integrally connected so that you remain in organic unity.[72]
This session was also the first time Albert Ayler recorded his own compositions. Some suspect that the song "Witches and Devils" was written by Howard, since it is the only piece where he plays the melody, but it is quite in Albert's idiom.[73] From here on, he would perform his own work almost exclusively.
The themes are all remarkably simple, eschewing the harmonic and rhythmic quirkiness of most previous jazz in favor of catchiness. Ayler's melodies are frequently variations on spirituals, themes from classical music, folk songs, etc. They seem to spring from the collective unconscious, to be remembered from childhood. They are so organically connected to the diatonic major and minor scales that anyone who has heard a scale will intuitively understand these songs. The performance practices of this group however, obscure the simplicity of the melodies. Ayler and his band play these nursery rhymes in the most violent, unsettling ways. It is possible to see the mundane tonality of the themes in opposition to the free space of the improvisations as representing European and African musical aesthetics, respectively.[74] However, Ayler does not simply juxtapose these elements but fuses them, improvising diatonically often, and incorporating noise into his themes, such as "Prophet," "Holy Ghost," and "Holy Spirit."
This session had been arranged by Ole Vestergaard Jensen, from Debut Records in Denmark. He received the recordings of Ayler's original compositions from this date. The spirituals were offered to Bernard Stollman, who refused them, claiming that they disturbed him.[75]
All the players on this date are approaching Ayler's level, in the sense that they are attempting to express themselves using extreme techniques on their instruments. The horns scream, bray, and moan, while the bassists use bowing, very high pitches, and vocalized articulation. Sunny Murray, playing a minimal kit of snare and bass drums, a single suspended cymbal, and his voice,[76] makes the most radical statement of any player (except for Albert Ayler) on the record. Even more than in his work with Cecil Taylor, Murray abandons the time-keeping function of percussion. Steady tempos are absent, as the drums and basses interact freely with the horns, allowing the music to progress at a natural pace, to wallow in its sadness or race furiously ahead, sustained by the kinetic energy created by all the players.
Starting with this session, Ayler and his colleagues began using what Gary Peacock referred to as "shapes"[77] as the basic material of their improvisations. These "shapes" are much more recognizable when heard than when described, but basically a "shape" is a smear of sound. Its structural value comes from its overall contour, not from the individual pitches involved. Ayler's "shapes" are analogous to the "sound blocks" that Ekkehard Jost uses to describe Archie Shepp's playing,[78] and it is possible that both Ayler and Shepp developed these techniques in response to the piano technique of Cecil Taylor, with whom both saxophonists apprenticed.
The spirituals were not released until the 1980's, and for good reason. While Albert plays beautifully, he does not improvise. Only on "When the Saints Go Marching In" does Albert's horn take off in improvisation, showing his Sidney Bechet influence as Grimes and Murray approximate a New Orleans groove. Albert seems inspired by the strong 4/4 beat here, something that would vanish from his music for the next 5 years. His respect for the tunes prevents him from applying his innovations to them. While there is a wealth of passionate inflection in his thematic playing here, this recording functions within too limited of a vocabulary to be satisfying as jazz. Cobbs plays straight gospel style, as if accompanying a church singer, and he improvises beautifully in this idiom. Grimes and Murray try to play their own styles, but hold back, deferring to the solemnity of Cobbs and Ayler. The album is perhaps Ayler's least important. It does however feature a great saxophonist playing great melodies. Albert's soprano playing here owes nothing to Coltrane and could pass for a deranged classical recitalist.
Albert was beginning to find a community of players with similar interests and was briefly a member of the Jazz Composers' Guild, a musicians' support group that flourished at this time.[79] Ayler's introduction to this group was likely through Sunny Murray, since in early 1964 the two of them had worked together in a quartet led by the Canadian pianist Paul Bley. This group played only one known show, at the Take 3 coffeehouse in Greenwich Village, and did not record.[80] This brief gig introduced Albert to Gary Peacock, the quartet's bassist. Soon after this meeting, Peacock turned down an offer to permanently replace Ron Carter in Miles Davis' group, in order to continue working with Albert Ayler.[81] The trio with Peacock and Murray became Albert's basic ensemble.
This working group of Albert, Gary Peacock, and Sunny Murray performed at the Cellar Cafe in New York in June 1964. One of their performances was taped by the writer Paul Haines, with the band's permission, and issued on record in 1976.[82]
Performance
June 14, 1964, The Cellar Cafe, New York.
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Gary Peacock (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
1.Spirits
2.Wizard
3.Ghosts (1st variation)
4.Prophecy
5.Ghosts (2nd variation) (actually "Spirits")
issued as Prophecy ESP 3030 (USA), SFX10711 (Japan).
More material from this session, at least an hour's worth, exists, unreleased.
Ayler's compositions are frequently misidentified in LP notes and he himself seems to assign titles randomly when announcing tunes live. Also, sections of various songs are often mixed together during performance. I have tried to standardize titles using the name given to a piece on its first known recording.
A month later, the group recorded again, this time in the studio.
Recording Session
July 10, 1964, New York.
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Gary Peacock (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
1.Ghosts (1st variation)
2.The Wizard (Erik Raben claims that this is actually a
performance of "Holy Holy" but, while the themes are
somewhat similar, a comparison of the transcriptions will
provide evidence for my disagreement.)
3.Spirits (actually "Vibrations" on ESP 1002B and "Saints"
on ESPM 1002B-these are the matrix numbers scratched into
the run-off groove of the second side.[83] ESPM 1002B is
the first pressing, though both versions have been used on
various re-issues of this material.)
4.Ghosts (2nd variation)
all titles released as Spiritual Unity, ESP (USA) 1002, (Japan) MJ7101, BT5002, 15PJ2021, SFX10712, Fontana (UK) SFJL933, (France) 538.107, (Europe) 858.122FPY, America (France) AM6000.
The music recorded at this session may be the most concise statement of Albert Ayler's aesthetic. From the first notes, one feels his total confidence in his sidemen, compositions, and technique.
The recording was made at what Bernard Stollman described as a "small midtown studio specializing in Latin demos," and the recording engineer hired for the session not only recorded in mono only, thinking that it was a demo, but rapidly left the studio when the trio began playing.[84]
Bernard Stollman: [Ayler arrived with] A tall, very slender white American, very emaciated-looking, named Gary Peacock, and a large corpulent jolly walrus who turned out to be Sunny Murray.[85]
Stollman was so moved during the session that he exclaimed to Gary Peacock's then-wife Annette "My God! What an auspicious beginning for a record label!"[86] However, many of Ayler's colleagues, especially Cecil Taylor, were highly critical of Stollman's business practices, claiming that he exploited the musicians signed to ESP records. Various stories circulated describing the financial arrangements by which a white man (Stollman) was stealing the work of black artists. One of these stories claimed that Ayler, Murray, and Peacock were paid $1 for recording this album, plus 50% of all money earned from sales, minus the costs of production, promotion, etc.[87] However, Stollman insisted that the musicians were paid union scale, plus 50% royalty.[88] In either case, it is likely that Stollman lost money on ESP records[89] and Ayler decided that he was lucky to be allowed to record, regardless of the circumstances.
Albert Ayler: I felt my art was so important that I had to get it out. At that time [the recording of Spiritual Unity] I was musically out of this world. I knew I had to play this music for the people.[90]
In actuality, the circumstances were quite good, for the middle 1960s. At a time when many musicians were being pressed to record rock-oriented material and even Duke Ellington did several of the Beatles' songs, Ayler was easily able to destroy whatever designs Bernard Stollman had in this direction.
Bernard Stollman: [I asked Ayler's trio to record a single] He said whom, perhaps something could be done, whereupon the group went into a 2 minute song which taught me all I had to know about the subject--that I should damn well keep my hands to myself.[91]
Also, all ESP recordings rejected by the artist were destroyed, in order to prevent their unauthorized issue.[92] While this seems a disaster for the scholar or fan, one has but to consider the posthumous floods of inferior Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix, and Chet Baker recordings, which degrade the artist's memory and do not profit his/her estate. While ESP did issue several Ayler recordings after his death, they were from unauthorized tapes made by audience members at live performances, in a sense, legal bootlegs.
Albert himself was greatly pleased with the album Spiritual Unity.
Albert Ayler: We weren't playing, we were listening to each other.
The most important thing is to stay in tune with each other but it takes spiritual people to do this.[93]
The music recorded at this session is simply incredible. Despite the absence of an engineer, the bass and sax sounds are crystal clear. Sunny Murray is the only victim of the lack of mixing. Perhaps the engineer, used to Latin percussionists, miked Murray's tiny kit incorrectly or set his recording level too low. On the other hand, the incredibly sensitive drummer may have been intimidated by the density of Peacock and Ayler's playing, though it seems unlikely that someone who had worked with Cecil Taylor could be intimidated by dense playing. In any case, Sunny Murray seems to flit about the cymbals on this recording, with the other parts of his drumset only occasionally audible.
The album begins with a relatively mellow version of "Ghosts," which would become Ayler's most frequently played composition. The chromatic introduction is played a cappella, with a lot of multi-octave overblowing. He then plays the melody dismissively, without the embellishment, repetition, or tempo variation common in other versions. In his solo, Albert seems to mock the song by blowing long screams that parallel the contours of the melody, and by playing dissonant combinations of honks and squeals that imitate its rhythm. While playing with the melody in this way, he discovers a line that synthesizes the various sections of the melody into a single wave of noise and explores this phrase before dropping out to let Gary Peacock solo.
Peacock's solo is a slightly more elaborate version of the high register arpeggio figures he has been using to accompany Ayler. This points to the most extraordinary characteristic of this band. All three members are constantly improvising freely. It is only convention that makes one hear a saxophone accompanied by bass and drums. In fact, while there is quite a bit of brilliant interaction between the players, it is much more helpful to view the pieces recorded by the Ayler trio as sets of simultaneous solos. Never before (or maybe since) had an ensemble taken the New Orleans ideal of collective improvisation to such an extreme level.
This becomes more obvious in the next piece, "The Wizard," which is part of a family of Ayler songs including "Holy Holy," "Holy Ghost," "Prophet," and "D.C." that are one or two bar phrases played extremely quickly, and repeated in order to set off frenzied improvisation. In this performance, Ayler again uses the parodic techniques of "Ghosts (First Variation)." More important however, is the prevalence of 3-way conversation, this being the only song on which Murray's snare drum can be heard.
The pressing of this album that I have contains the song "Saints" next and it is a rubato ballad, with more group conversation, verging on call-and-response in some parts and featuring Ayler's vibrato. Though somewhat apparent on his recordings of "Witches and Devils," the spirituals, and "Summertime," this is the first example of one of the most radical features of his playing. No jazz player had ever used a vibrato as wide as Ayler's and it is primarily the melodrama of this sound that led critics to describe him as primitive. In this crying, braying oscillation of pitch is perhaps Ayler's greatest break with jazz tradition. It is as if he is refusing to be "hip," to hide his feelings, to be "cool," like the vibratoless Paul Desmond and Lee Konitz. He has gone beyond the vocalized vibrato of players like Louis Armstrong to what can only be described as sobbing.
Ayler tears into the theme of the second version of "Ghosts" with a ferocious swing that seems like spiritual ecstasy. He elaborately ornaments the theme, as if he cannot wait to begin improvising, and then solos without regard for the theme, creating in and of the moment. Peacock plays much the same accompaniment that he did on the first version, but an octave lower, in a more traditional bass range. His solo is also full of Ayler's frenzy.
The music on Prophecy is even more intense. The trio are obviously just beginning to really communicate with one another and their playing is full of the excitement of discovery. The music itself is looser than on the studio recordings, with Peacock beginning every tune with a solo and Albert gradually pushing the group towards one of his melodies. The recording quality on Prophecy is excellent, especially considering the circumstances, and it is the essential document of this band.
The limited repertoire and duplication of themes on these records would continue throughout Ayler's career, though never again to such an extreme as to record four versions of the same song ("Ghosts") within a month of one another. "Prophecy" is the only song performed by the trio that is not on Witches and Devils or the September LP Vibrations. While it would be recorded at least twice more by Ayler, it would always be played with Call Cobbs' keyboards, making this trio version especially interesting. Albert's reasons for these repetitions were explained by his brother.
Don Ayler: It's the parallel of a man making the same statement twice. I could tell you something one time and then tell it to you another time using different words. But it would be the same statement. The two "Ghosts" [on Spiritual Unity] are that way. The music is so close to the feeling expressed that the feeling can be expressed in different passages and still speak the same. Music, to us, is like talking.[94]
One week later, Ayler's trio returned to the studio, joined by 3 additional horn players.
Recording Session
July 17, 1964, home of Paul Haines, New York.
Albert Ayler (tenor saxophone)
Don Cherry (trumpet)
John Tchicai (alto saxophone)
Roswell Rudd (trombone)
Gary Peacock (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
1.Don's Dawn
2.AY
3.ITT
Don's Dawn and AY are a continuous performance. Both AY and ITT include the theme from "Holy Holy".
issued as ESP 1016 New York Eye and Ear Control[95]
The music performed at this session was recorded by Michael Snow for an experimental film, also called New York Eye and Ear Control.
Roswell Rudd: Michael Snowden [Snow] had a loft down where the Twin Towers are and the way he did that [record New York Eye & Ear Control] was to put us on one floor. I think it was Paul Haines's loft, you know the poet, we played in his loft... and then he drilled a hole in the floor and had his recording equipment downstairs on the other floor because the building was so vibrant that when you started to play everything started to shake, so you needed to have the equipment in a different room, or on a different floor the way the music was happening. So Paul was even then a genius, drilled a hole in the floor and had all the microphone wires going down to the floor below and he was at the controls down there while we had a couple of mikes. He did a number of things that way. That's all it was. Just a jam, and Snowden [Snow] didn't say anything. He said just go ahead and play and when he got the time he needed, he took that and made a movie with it. In other words made the movie from an improvised jam session rather than make the movie and fit the soundtrack to it. He made a soundtrack and then went out and shot a movie. I don't know how many people have ever done that.[96]
Michael Snow: I had the good fortune to meet Roswell Rudd who is one of the greatest trombonists in the world. He was new then. I got introduced to what was the newest stage in jazz which had practically no popular appeal at all...I got a piano from Roswell. Actually, he had to sell it, he was very poor...I put the piano in my studio...and asked people if they wanted to play. Most of these guys had absolutely no work or no access to a piano. The next thing I knew I had rehearsals at my place and was able to listen to some of the greatest music at that time. Literally everybody...has become a star. For example Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Paul Bley, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Milford Graves.[97]
Snow's film explores the image of the Walking Woman, which dominated his work in the 60's. The woman's profile is used both as a physical presence and as a frame through which other images are shown. Like Andy Warhol, Snow pioneered the use of a self-consciously simple trademark image to generate a series of works, a technique later developed by Keith Haring, Ronnie Cutrone, and especially Mark Kostabi. Like Albert Ayler, Michael Snow is far more influential than well-known.
Michael Snow: Here [in New York Eye and Ear Control] I tried to make it possible for the improvised, spontaneous, raw, `vocal,' raucous, expressionist, emotional, `romantic' music of Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, etc., to co-exist with the `classical,' measured, refined, considered, composed, `intellectual,' temporal images. That's what the title means. I think it works. It's a simultaneity, not just one thing accompanying another.[98]
Ayler had met Don Cherry during Sonny Rollins' European tour. Cherry was working at this time with Archie Shepp and John Tchicai in the New York Contemporary Five. Roswell Rudd was playing with Albert's former army colleague Lewis Worrell, in the New York Art Quartet. Both of these groups were experimenting with the discoveries of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. The convergence of the players from these groups (especially Archie Shepp's) with Albert Ayler can be seen as the key event in the development of what has been called "energy music." Apparently, Ayler admired the work of these bands, since, not only did he later work with Lewis Worrell and Don Cherry, but also with the NYAQ's brilliant drummer, Milford Graves.
The trio of Peacock, Murray, and Ayler, with Graves added on a second drumset as well as other percussion instruments, played at "The Dom" in New York sometime in this summer. John Coltrane saw this show and was inspired by it to act on his long-time desire to add a second drummer to his group.[99] This would not be the last time that Ayler would strongly influence the man who had once been his idol. Though this would be the only time Ayler used two drummers, the performance was successful enough that there were rumors, reported by LeRoi Jones in Downbeat, that Graves would be a permanent addition to the group.[100]
The music recorded by the group of trio plus horns seems to be an experiment by Ayler in adding players to his band. Also, it is an attempt to further explore areas opened up by Ornette Coleman, on his album Free Jazz, which was the first large group collective improvisation.
The experiment is basically unsuccessful. The additional players, especially Rudd and Tchicai seem to be floundering. When the rhythm section, rather than laying out a path, as is traditional, is constantly pointing out alternate directions, as Peacock and Murray do, the soloist must have supreme confidence in his own choices. Cherry, by keeping his phrases simple and melodic, makes a powerful appearance, especially on "Don's Dawn." However, when John Tchicai tries to float over the beat, he sounds lost, since there is no beat. Even more than this however, the relative failure of this project, compared to Free Jazz or John Coltrane's Ascension (a work heavily influenced by Ayler which will be discussed later), is due to Albert Ayler's commanding presence. His sound on the saxophone is so immense and colorful, and his ability to improvise catchy, simple figures as well as slabs of noise, so extraordinary, that it is impossible not to hear his horn as the focal point of what tries to be a fully collective project. When Albert plays, the others follow his lead, and when he is not playing, the music seems to drift aimlessly. Roswell Rudd has said as much in his recollections of Ayler.
Rudd: Oh, Albert was a sweet guy. I loved the times that I spent with him. He was kind of shy and spoke real soft, and he'd get that horn out man and... What a big sound that was. Just a real quiet guy. Like all outdoors when he played, man. There was no doubt about who has the lead. He was like a New Orleans trumpet player. He'd put it right out in front with capital letters. Wonderful.[101]
The next month, August of 1964, the trio played a private party at the former location of the Jazz Gallery in New York. Don Cherry joined the band for most of their set.[102]
Soon after this performance, the Montmarte club in Copenhagen, where Albert had played with Cecil Taylor, invited him to bring his trio there for an extended engagement and possible European tour. However, the members of the band were only given one-way tickets.[103] Bernard Stollman strongly recommended to Albert and Sunny Murray that they not go,[104] but his motivation likely was that, since there was no long-term contract between Ayler and ESP,[105] Ayler would record for European labels during the tour. Perhaps Stollman should have worried about his musicians' health more than their recording plans; at the end of August,[106] when the Ayler trio left for Europe, Gary Peacock had not eaten for 15 days and had to be pulled out of bed to catch the boat.[107] Don Cherry was already in Europe with the NYCF and joined the Ayler group at the Montmarte for their tour.[108]
Three nights of live performance and two studio albums were recorded by the group during this tour. The live tapes from September are in the possession of Steeplechase Records and may someday be released.[109] The currently available documents are amongst the greatest jazz ever recorded.
Recordings from European Tour: Winter 1964
Albert Ayler (tenor sax)
Don Cherry (trumpet)
Gary Peacock (bass)
Sunny Murray (drumset)
September 3, 1964, broadcast from the Montmarte.
1.Spirits
2.Holy Spirits
3.Vibrations
4.Mothers
5.Children (incomplete on recording)
6.Spirits
September 10, same.
1. Vibrations
2.Saints
3.Spirits (inc.)
September 14 studio in Copenhagen
1.Ghosts (short version)
2.Children
3.Holy Spirits
4.Ghosts (long version)
5.Vibrations
6.Mothers
all titles released on Debut (Denmark) 144, Fontana (UK) SFJL925, (Europe) 688.606ZL, (Japan) SFON7054, Freedom (France) FNLP41000, (Germany) 28.461.302, (Japan) PA9710, Arista/Freedom (USA) 1000, Black Lion (Europe) 65601, Grandi del Jazz (Italy) GdJ12, Tobacco Road B/2525. Album titles Ghosts, Mothers and Children, Vibrations variously.
1 also released on Arista (USA) 1 (a sampler)
November 5, at the Montmarte.
1.Mothers
2.Children
3.Holy Spirits
all titles released on Landmark (Europe) LS2-902 (CD) Albert Ayler Live in Europe 1964-1966 and Philology 88 Albert Ayler.
November 9, studio in Hilversum, Holland.
1.Angels
2.C.A.C. (actually "The Wizard")
3.Ghosts
4.Infant Happiness
5.Spirits
6.No Name
all titles released as The Hilversum Session, Osmosis (Holland) 6001, DIW (Japan) 25009, Coppens 6001.
The addition of Cherry to the group is only one of the many things that makes these performances so outstanding. Peacock plays arco (bowing) at length for the first time on record with Ayler and this enables him to play long tones with vibrato and extract waves of harmonics, both in imitation of Ayler, and to function as a third melodic voice, as on "Holy Spirit," where he doubles and harmonizes the melody. Murray too plays a greater variety of textures on this recording, perhaps aware that he is being decently recorded, for the first time with Ayler.
There is a much greater sense of ensemble and textural variety in this group than in prior Ayler aggregations. The quartet conjures the sounds of marching bands and chamber music, as well as those of traditional and avant-garde jazz. Murray introduces vast plains of silence into his playing, leaving one horn alone with the bass, the two horns in duet, or the soloist a cappella. Sometimes also, all four players will improvise together, making the New Orleans collective improvisation that was latent on Spiritual Unity explicit. All of these possibilities would be further explored by Ayler in future, larger, ensembles.
Also, the variety of Ayler's composing is more evident on these recordings than on any up to this point. "Ghosts" receives two definitive treatments on Vibrations, one with and one without solos. On The Hilversum Session, less than 4 weeks later, it is played in a totally different arrangement. "Children" is a fast variant of "Holy Holy," taken from Ayler's improvisations on New York Eye and Ear Control and "Vibrations" is also in this family of songs. Albert's tragic ballad style is expressed in "Mothers" and "No Name."
"Holy Spirits" is unique among the tunes played by this group in its harmonic and rhythmic structure. It is unique in the Ayler canon as a medium tempo ballad, using the minor scale. It creates a feeling of passion that is ambiguous, and leads into amazing improvisation, especially by Cherry.
Don Cherry was well prepared to work with Albert Ayler, having played in the past with Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Archie Shepp, among others, each one a revolutionary saxophonist with a highly personal style. His playing on these sessions is remarkable, intuitively collaborating with Ayler to create the aforementioned ensemble effects and soloing magnificently throughout. The version of "Holy Spirits" on Vibrations boasts a particularly brilliant solo that uses Ayler-like timbral variation with Rollins-like thematic construction and should permanently silence those critics of Cherry's technical ability. The long version of "Ghosts" from Vibrations is also remarkable for Cherry's (and, to some extent, Peacock's) imitation of Ayler's most frenzied work. The Hilversum Session, though not as well recorded, offers music of almost equal brilliance. There are more ballads: "Angels," "Spirits," and the themeless "No Name." "Ghosts" receives a looser treatment than on Vibrations and "The Wizard" has a much more contemplative feel than on earlier recordings. Somewhat like "Holy Spirits," "Angels" is a bizarre middle tempo piece. Reminiscent of "There's No Place Like Home" and the theme from "The Little Rascals" TV show, it creates an amazing feeling of discomfort, as the horns interrupt each other and violently oppose whatever tonal center appears to be becoming dominant. This album seems more like a live performance in the openness of the players' approach, with more energy in the rhythm section and more simultaneous blowing by the horns. Apparently this band, like the trio, would mix and match Ayler's themes, as Albert quotes "Ghosts" on "Angels" and Don Cherry quotes "Holy Spirits" at the end of "C.A.C."
Though the European tour was an indisputable artistic success, and was appreciated by audiences,[110] the group had to face some great hardship on the road.
Sunny Murray: Then, when I went to Europe with a group I co-led with Albert Ayler--that was the Free Jazz Group and Gary Peacock and Don Cherry was in it--a lot more strange things happened that I didn't understand. Like, when I had gone to Europe a year earlier with Cecil as the leader, everything had been pretty cool.But with Albert and me it was different.
Like, first of all, part of the tour was cancelled when Albert hit some promoter in the mouth over ten dollars. I always thought he hit the wrong cat; the cats he should have hit he was always smiling at. And like later, when we got ready to go home, I had to go to the embassy because I didn't have enough money. Everybody else in the band was cool. I didn't understand that shit--why was I the only one that was uptight? The embassy had to give me a transport ticket to go home. Another funny thing was like on the first tour, when I was playing with Cecil at the Montmarte in Copenhagen, one night this bartender went crazy. He started screaming and tore up the bar. "STOP THE MUSIC. I CANNOT STAND THE MUSIC." Then on this tour he comes back. Albert, who had played with us on the first tour, saw him and said, "There's that dude." And the dude came back, and he said, shaking hands and very quiet, "You have freed me." He'd been in a home for almost a year.
See, I was getting strange vibrations all the time we was in Europe. We were getting very in tune with the spirits when the Free Jazz group was over there--we were the most spiritual band in Europe at the time. Eric Dolphy, who had come over earlier with Mingus, had remained in Europe to play with us, with the Free Jazz group. He wanted to bust loose and really play free. But he died. Suddenly. Rumor was that he was poisoned. That set me off, and I began to realize that a lot of people were doing things to me to hang me up, and I started to get very nervous. It seemed like they was always doing something to me to stop me from the way I was playing. I was getting sick a lot--drugs being put in my drinks and shit like that. Then when the time came to go home, everybody split on me--Albert said, "Bye," and flew home. I was stranded and frightened. I was in a hotel room alone in a foreign country. The embassy said, "O.K., we'll send you home on an army boat." They told me what boat to catch.
And this is how another attempt on my life came about. I had known a chick from the earlier tour and she came up to me and invited me to stay at her home which was sixty miles from Copenhagen. I said "I'm catching the boat tomorrow and can't go that far." She said, "Don't catch that boat, catch the next one." So I got a strange vibration and I didn't go home with this lady. I packed my bag and headed for the train station to take a train to the port where the boat was.
When I got on the train, two cats got on right behind me. They were dressed very debonair. They kept watching me. Smiling at me. Every time I went to eat, they followed me into the dining car--real foreign intrigue shit! One time these dudes came and looked in my compartment and smiled and closed the door. I had me some smoke and I threw it out the window. I didn't know what was going on and I took this little Swedish dagger out and kept it near me all the time. When we got to the port, to Bremerhaven, the dudes changed clothes, man, and they came out dressed like sailors--and they weren't no sailors. This really messed up my head because what happened then was they changed into civies again and when I got off the train I saw the dudes cross the platform and get on a fucking train that was going back! It was too much, man. But that wasn't even it. On the boat, about three days at sea, a dude cuts into me and he says, "You know the next boat that was leaving the day after this one? Everybody on that boat is just about dead, man." I said, "What happened?" He said, "There was an epidemic of spinal sclerosis or something. Somebody snuck a sick person on the boat and he died on the boat--he would have been dead in a couple of hours anyway." They had taken about four people off the boat in helicopters. So I'm thinking, damn, if I'd gone over to this broad's house and laid up an extra day in her crib and caught the other boat I'd be dead.[111]