Hearing the soft-spoken voice of Albert Ayler at the beginning of this 1963 recording is spooky. Not because he's gone, but because he's so calm, so young, and so hesitantly articulate: Nothing like the voice of his saxophone playing at all. This session is a reissue of a Fantasy recording, and one which pairs Ayler up with a Scandinavian rhythm section that includes the 16-year-old Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass. After the weirdly wonderful spoken intro, Ayler goes for the throat on soprano in "Bye Bye Blackbird." It's difficult to tell if Ayler'… read more
Hearing the soft-spoken voice of Albert Ayler at the beginning of this 1963 recording is spooky. Not because he's gone, but because he's so… read more
Hearing the soft-spoken voice of Albert Ayler at the beginning of this 1963 recording is spooky. Not because he's gone, but because he's so calm, so young, and so hesitantly ar… read more
Albert Ayler (born July 13th, 1936 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio – New York City, November 1970) was the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s. He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved by using the stiffest plastic reeds he could find on his tenor saxophone—and a broad, pathos-filled vibrato that came right out of church music. His trio and quartet records of 1964, like 'Spiritual Unity' and 'The Hilversum Sessions', show him advancing the improvisational notions of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman into abstract realms where timbre, not harmony an… read more
Albert Ayler (born July 13th, 1936 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio – New York City, November 1970) was the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s. He possessed a deep blistering ton… read more
Albert Ayler (born July 13th, 1936 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio – New York City, November 1970) was the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s. He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved by using the stiffest plastic reeds… read more