The December '66 issue of Britain's Jazz Monthly featured an interview with Albert and Don Ayler by Val Wilmer. As in previous years, Albert Ayler was bemoaning the lack of widespread acceptance and commercial success in the US, and comparing it to Europe. Still almost poverty stricken, they gave a strident interview in support of their Music as Art.
Another interesting point was Albert's answer on classical music. Unlike other jazz musicians such as John Coltrane or Charlie Parker, who would listen to and learn from Igor Stravinsky, Albert was likely talking about Charles Ives, who I think was a big influence. Not just in the incorporation of marching band music, but also in identifying with another US musician who didn't get major respect or recognition during his lifetime.
ON A RECENT visit to New York I had the good fortune to spend some time talking with Albert Ayler and his trumpeter brother Don.
I call it fortunate because the Aylers are not often in New York, preferring the warmer atmosphere of their Cleveland, Ohio, home when not working; also I wanted to discover the philosophy lying behind what is, for me, an unpalatable musical concept.
I found the Aylers remarkably forthcoming and friendly in spite of being aware of my hostility to their music, and, out of fairness to their obvious sincerity, tried to keep our interview as objective as possible.
Albert, who was born in Cleveland on July 13, 1936, began the conversation. I started playing very young and my father taught me for three years. When I was small I wanted to go out and play with the kids but he made me practise. Our father has helped us quite a bit through our musical career, always pushing us, trying to make something out of his sons.
I actually started playing Blues and Rhythm first. I played with Little Walter and his Jukes and travelled all over, but that life was quite hard for me because I was like only 15 years old and we were travelling in the Summertime. The manner of living was quite different; we'd drink real heavy and play real hard then travel all day, arrive, take out our horns and play again. It wasn’t for me so I had to think of a way out, but I do think that being out there amongst those really deep-rooted people was very important in my musical career.
At the age of 22 I went into the Army and had a chance to play concert music for 7 hours a day. After that I would take time out for myself and so I began to take certain scales and try to do something different. I would play them real fast, trying to get a new way to play the music that would be my own.
But didn’t you ever have a period in your life when you were playing conventional jazz?
I always could play standard music, even without the scores. When I was small my father would listen to Lester a lot, so I guess I grew up under that. And Wardell Gray, Charlie Parker and Freddie Webster, the trumpet player from Cleveland who only had a few chances to record—actually he was one of the best players that ever lived, also Clifford Brown.
How do you feel about having played your own way for the past ten years with a minimum of commercial success ?
America should give their artists more respect because it just doesn’t make sense. In Europe everyone's talking about me. They can’t be wrong.
DON: They have antiquated minds and their imaginations are very slow as far as appreciating those who are creating. And they'd never know who's who until they read about them, I mean, they can’t hear it.
ALBERT: American-minded people are not listening to music any more and that’s why I have to leave just like I did in 1964 when I came to Europe with Don Cherry, Sunny Murray and Gary Peacock, I had a one-way ticket and one gig in Denmark, but I had to leave America. We wanted to give some of our love to someone who would really sit and listen and be quiet.
Don’t you think that jazz should be entertainment ?
ALBERT: No, our music is pure art. It’s like I'm moving, like I'm creating the truth. I’m not trying to entertain people, I'm playing the truth for those who can listen. I realise that not everybody is capable of listening to real beauty, it's beyond most people, it’s only for a select few. But I'm hoping that in the future more people will listen.
It's getting rather late now, I've been feeling the spirit for a number of years now and I've seen a lot of people come from all over. Music has changed so much from when Ornette Coleman started playing around the beat. It’s neo-avant garde music and this beat will be eliminated.
DON; I think the most important thing is for people’s imaginations to be enlarged. That gives a meaning to life, All they have to do is accept a certain amount of beauty and they'll get more meaning out of their life. Only a fool, or let's say someone that is very unwise, would eliminate beauty from their minds.
ALBERT: When you hear my group you're hearing something completely fresh, it’s completely different. Those old standard tunes have to be eliminated, but it’s still beautiful if a man can’t do this and he plays a little bit of Duke, a little bit of everybody—this is something of an achievement and I could understand it.
Do you ever listen to any of the earlier jazz ?
ALBERT: I prefer listening to classical music more. The other music has something to do with the ghetto life and the suffering. When one really suffers, that’s like being without anything and I know about that because although I've made eight records, I don’t have any money or anything.
Can you ever expect to make a living out of music that you admit is not entertainment ?
DON: Entertainment music is part of the past and everyone in the world is waiting for something new, anyway. They're looking for more than entertainment and this is the thing that is going to be able to exist in the world. They are now ready for a creative mind, plus the understanding behind that mind, also. With this understanding you'd have less of that limited feeling of colour—black or white or pink, blue or whatever. We need creative minds and I think that the music we're making is as dynamic and free as the music of the East.
ALBERT: And that’s about the freest thing that’s going. I thought Coltrane was going in this direction to play a prayer. I've been through religion and all the other things and I'm trying to find more and more peace all the time.
But your music doesn’t sound as though it has much peace in it!
ALBERT: Well, that’s been like the earlier records, you've heard. Everybody has a different meaning of peace and what i was playing, that scream, was peace to me at that time.
Don't you think, Albert, that in order to communicate, music should convey more than one emotion ?
ALBERT: Alt that time that was the way it had to go, but the music I'm playing now is completely different: You have to make changes in life, just like dying and being born again, artistically speaking. You become very young again through this process, then you grow up and listen and grow young again
Do you feel mature in your playing ?
ALBERT: I feel very happy now with the way that it’s going. I'm playing a silent scream. In classical music there always was a certain amount of peace, whatever was happening. It’s the way you get your music together that’s the most important thing, The form in the free-form is the hardest thing to do —not just one thing, one scream for ever and ever.
But how can you talk about music in terms like that ?
ALBERT: That’s been the thing, the problem, all along. But look at America, the whole thing is changing. What once was is not any more. Everybody has studied but most people are playing only what they have learned. They haven't taken it anywhere else. It’s like when Monk was playing, no-one liked him, but he was playing what he had learned in those days and playing it his way.
DON: I think that all artists are just visitors to life.
ALBERT: But the artists’ artist is the one we're looking for now.
Do you think everything that is being created today is valid?
ALBERT: Definitely not. A lot of musicians are playing music they're not sure of and they’re not together. They run out of things to say on their instruments or they say too much.
Can you imagine playing your kind of music in a big band setting ?
ALBERT: Yes, you never can tell where it can go from here. Maybe in ten years time—if I won’t do it, somebody else will. You'll have a big band playing a silent scream. You'd have to have all the men thinking alike so they can play together and some of the young cats are so bothered with what they have to say that they don’t listen to the man that’s sitting next to them. Like on Spiritual Unity,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.
What will you do, Albert, if you never manage to draw large crowds ?
ALBERT: Well, that would be alright because I know whoever came to listen would be happy. Sometimes they come thinking of the way the music was, but what they don’t understand is that the artists’ artist never stands still. The way the music was happening before, we were on a different plateau. Now it’s peaceful and I know that if the people were to hear what I’m doing now, they would be hypnotised. What I’m playing today is peace.
Remembering Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler in Sweden
The Wrong Direction for Albert Ayler
In Defence of Albert Ayler and The New Thing
TO MR JONES - I HAD A VISION
Ref: Jazz Monthly Dec '66
Another interesting point was Albert's answer on classical music. Unlike other jazz musicians such as John Coltrane or Charlie Parker, who would listen to and learn from Igor Stravinsky, Albert was likely talking about Charles Ives, who I think was a big influence. Not just in the incorporation of marching band music, but also in identifying with another US musician who didn't get major respect or recognition during his lifetime.
ON A RECENT visit to New York I had the good fortune to spend some time talking with Albert Ayler and his trumpeter brother Don.I call it fortunate because the Aylers are not often in New York, preferring the warmer atmosphere of their Cleveland, Ohio, home when not working; also I wanted to discover the philosophy lying behind what is, for me, an unpalatable musical concept.
I found the Aylers remarkably forthcoming and friendly in spite of being aware of my hostility to their music, and, out of fairness to their obvious sincerity, tried to keep our interview as objective as possible.
Albert, who was born in Cleveland on July 13, 1936, began the conversation. I started playing very young and my father taught me for three years. When I was small I wanted to go out and play with the kids but he made me practise. Our father has helped us quite a bit through our musical career, always pushing us, trying to make something out of his sons.
I actually started playing Blues and Rhythm first. I played with Little Walter and his Jukes and travelled all over, but that life was quite hard for me because I was like only 15 years old and we were travelling in the Summertime. The manner of living was quite different; we'd drink real heavy and play real hard then travel all day, arrive, take out our horns and play again. It wasn’t for me so I had to think of a way out, but I do think that being out there amongst those really deep-rooted people was very important in my musical career.
At the age of 22 I went into the Army and had a chance to play concert music for 7 hours a day. After that I would take time out for myself and so I began to take certain scales and try to do something different. I would play them real fast, trying to get a new way to play the music that would be my own.
But didn’t you ever have a period in your life when you were playing conventional jazz?
I always could play standard music, even without the scores. When I was small my father would listen to Lester a lot, so I guess I grew up under that. And Wardell Gray, Charlie Parker and Freddie Webster, the trumpet player from Cleveland who only had a few chances to record—actually he was one of the best players that ever lived, also Clifford Brown.
How do you feel about having played your own way for the past ten years with a minimum of commercial success ?
America should give their artists more respect because it just doesn’t make sense. In Europe everyone's talking about me. They can’t be wrong.
DON: They have antiquated minds and their imaginations are very slow as far as appreciating those who are creating. And they'd never know who's who until they read about them, I mean, they can’t hear it.
ALBERT: American-minded people are not listening to music any more and that’s why I have to leave just like I did in 1964 when I came to Europe with Don Cherry, Sunny Murray and Gary Peacock, I had a one-way ticket and one gig in Denmark, but I had to leave America. We wanted to give some of our love to someone who would really sit and listen and be quiet.
Don’t you think that jazz should be entertainment ?
It's getting rather late now, I've been feeling the spirit for a number of years now and I've seen a lot of people come from all over. Music has changed so much from when Ornette Coleman started playing around the beat. It’s neo-avant garde music and this beat will be eliminated.
DON; I think the most important thing is for people’s imaginations to be enlarged. That gives a meaning to life, All they have to do is accept a certain amount of beauty and they'll get more meaning out of their life. Only a fool, or let's say someone that is very unwise, would eliminate beauty from their minds.
ALBERT: When you hear my group you're hearing something completely fresh, it’s completely different. Those old standard tunes have to be eliminated, but it’s still beautiful if a man can’t do this and he plays a little bit of Duke, a little bit of everybody—this is something of an achievement and I could understand it.
Do you ever listen to any of the earlier jazz ?
ALBERT: I prefer listening to classical music more. The other music has something to do with the ghetto life and the suffering. When one really suffers, that’s like being without anything and I know about that because although I've made eight records, I don’t have any money or anything.
Can you ever expect to make a living out of music that you admit is not entertainment ?
DON: Entertainment music is part of the past and everyone in the world is waiting for something new, anyway. They're looking for more than entertainment and this is the thing that is going to be able to exist in the world. They are now ready for a creative mind, plus the understanding behind that mind, also. With this understanding you'd have less of that limited feeling of colour—black or white or pink, blue or whatever. We need creative minds and I think that the music we're making is as dynamic and free as the music of the East.
ALBERT: And that’s about the freest thing that’s going. I thought Coltrane was going in this direction to play a prayer. I've been through religion and all the other things and I'm trying to find more and more peace all the time.
But your music doesn’t sound as though it has much peace in it!
ALBERT: Well, that’s been like the earlier records, you've heard. Everybody has a different meaning of peace and what i was playing, that scream, was peace to me at that time.
Don't you think, Albert, that in order to communicate, music should convey more than one emotion ?
ALBERT: Alt that time that was the way it had to go, but the music I'm playing now is completely different: You have to make changes in life, just like dying and being born again, artistically speaking. You become very young again through this process, then you grow up and listen and grow young again
Do you feel mature in your playing ?
ALBERT: I feel very happy now with the way that it’s going. I'm playing a silent scream. In classical music there always was a certain amount of peace, whatever was happening. It’s the way you get your music together that’s the most important thing, The form in the free-form is the hardest thing to do —not just one thing, one scream for ever and ever.
But how can you talk about music in terms like that ?
ALBERT: That’s been the thing, the problem, all along. But look at America, the whole thing is changing. What once was is not any more. Everybody has studied but most people are playing only what they have learned. They haven't taken it anywhere else. It’s like when Monk was playing, no-one liked him, but he was playing what he had learned in those days and playing it his way.
DON: I think that all artists are just visitors to life.
ALBERT: But the artists’ artist is the one we're looking for now.
Do you think everything that is being created today is valid?
ALBERT: Definitely not. A lot of musicians are playing music they're not sure of and they’re not together. They run out of things to say on their instruments or they say too much.
Can you imagine playing your kind of music in a big band setting ?
ALBERT: Yes, you never can tell where it can go from here. Maybe in ten years time—if I won’t do it, somebody else will. You'll have a big band playing a silent scream. You'd have to have all the men thinking alike so they can play together and some of the young cats are so bothered with what they have to say that they don’t listen to the man that’s sitting next to them. Like on Spiritual Unity,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.
What will you do, Albert, if you never manage to draw large crowds ?
ALBERT: Well, that would be alright because I know whoever came to listen would be happy. Sometimes they come thinking of the way the music was, but what they don’t understand is that the artists’ artist never stands still. The way the music was happening before, we were on a different plateau. Now it’s peaceful and I know that if the people were to hear what I’m doing now, they would be hypnotised. What I’m playing today is peace.
Remembering Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler in Sweden
The Wrong Direction for Albert Ayler
In Defence of Albert Ayler and The New Thing
TO MR JONES - I HAD A VISION
Ref: Jazz Monthly Dec '66
Comments
Post a Comment