Albert Ayler in Sweden

Following a three year stint in the US Army (band), based at Orleans in France, Albert Ayler returned home to the US, then decamped to Sweden in 1962. In 1962, Sweden wasn't yet as cosmopolitan to Jazz as France or Denmark; other popular places for African American jazz musicians in the 1960s. Once in Sweden, making a living as a musician became almost as difficult as Ayler had faced in the US. However through time, he built some strong relationships and friendships, played in Stockholm's top Jazz venues and played (and recorded) outside Sweden in Helsinki and Copenhagen.

Nils Edstrom was a photographer who became friendly with Ayler. He recalled Ayler's first performance at Stockholm's Golden Circle club.
"Precisely because of Ayler's presence, it was absolutely necessary that you were present when he played, placed in front of him and confronted by his playing, to be forced into trying to grapple with the realisation that this experience was totally unfamiliar and devoid of references to anything else that had gone before. His sound was described as coming from nowhere, like an archetypal raw blast from the primordial forest. Nobody was prepared for that physical mass of sound."
Edstrom offered Ayler his photographic studio near the Golden Circle as a practice space. The couple of times he used it Edstrom saw how incredibly competent he was on the horn. "He played Parker solos that were directly as he had learned them, and how it appeared in the register of the alto sax. Because he could in some way extend the register via falsetto, but also by

changing the sound. But then I had my second shock, because he could play with every kind of dynamic, from very soft like Kenny Dorham, but it wasn't in any way intensive like he brought forth at gigs. But then he noticed I was taken aback, so the next evening he came over and brought some literature, which I think was 'The Method of Classical Saxophone'. Albert started singing Debussy's 'Saxophone Rhapsody' and he says, 'This is written for alto and I have to sing it so I will know it before I transcribe it’. Then he gets going and plays it on the tenor, and he is still simulating the alto fairly quietly in quite a mellow style."

References : Cleveland Call & Post, April 1962, Albert Ayler Holy Ghost

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