The Legacy of Albert Ayler, from 1971

Words for Albert Ayler :

Albert Ayler restored much of the primitive innocence of early jazz to modern music. He either made me laugh or shook me to the depths. There was so much evidence of a warm personality in his tunes and in his sound, and of an honest and truly spiritual dedication in the things he said about his music. Like Jimi Hendrix, his spirit lives on. (From the Letters Page, Down Beat April 1971)

THE LEGACY OF ALBERT AYLER

by John Litweiler

TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING. It was Ornette Coleman who revolutionized jazz at the start of the 1960s. It was Coleman with his contemporaries Dolphy, Rollins, Coltrane, and Taylor-who determined that the New Music would be a revolution of sensibility: they did not just introduce new techniques into jazz, they opened the art to a wholly new realm of emotions, discoveries, human statements.

Albert Ayler was part of the New Music's second wave, as Joseph Jarman would say. After Coleman and his fellows, an entire musical generation of slightly younger men whose art was formed under their influence was sure to follow. Among these players Albert Ayler was the very finest, the truest revolutionary, the one heroically original mind.

At his best, Ayler was fully as great as Coltrane, and perhaps even Coleman. All these are familiar statements; his admirers have repeated them for several years now. Very few musicians have ever aroused so much responsive excitement, pro or even con. You'll recall how, a few years ago, the jazz magazines were full of Ayler interviews and critical appraisals. Let's go back to his great period, his early records, and note the features that mark his genius as a creator.

His first LP was a nightclub set, bass and drums accompanying, in a semi-free post-Rollins style. It was issued in a very limited edition on a private European label, and remains extremely rare. My Name Is Albert Ayler dates from the same European years, about 1962-63, when his brief, seminal association with Taylor took place. This is Ayler soloing with a grubby (despite an able bassist) bop rhythm section, and partly because of the accompanying trio, critics universally derided the music.

But actually, the creation is magnificent. Ayler carries all the pieces, so that even C.T ., the free track, almost works. In the U.S. reissue, Ayler's narrative ("My name is Albert Ayler . . ., " etc.) is edited out, so we fade in on his only recorded soprano solo, the funny, highly ironic Bye Bye Blackbird; the organization of this and Green Dolphin Street predict the sure freedom of the ESP-Disks. Billie's Bounce is his contribution to hard bop, an optimistic million miles removed from Parker's conception.

Summertime is one of the New Music's classics. The theme is an overwhelming tragic lament. Images of pathos compound throughout the brilliantly subtle structure, and the precarious optimism of Gershwin's closing chords turns into despairing pleas for the illusion of hope. Already, Ayler's extreme care for exact dramatization, the perfection of dynamic shading, the precision of volume gradations, even the concept of nuances and grace phrases determining Summertime's structure-these and the power of his message demonstrate an utterly unique individuality in jazz, an utterly rare sensitivity for drama and defined emotion, a Shakespearean sense of feeling and wholeness.

Not long after, Ayler began appearing regularly in New York, and all who heard him immediately recognized his uniqueness. Don't forget that in the early '60s Free musicians and fans were a tiny, near secret underground group-and that really means underground, without the current fashionable or P.R. overtones. They played at obscure coffee houses, on fleeting tavern gigs, sometimes at musicians' homes, and in rare concerts at churches, schools, art galleries, etc. (Today, of course, the scene has progressed: now you can hear the music at obscure coffee houses, fleeting tavern gigs, rare spontaneous sessions, some concerts, etc.)

Ayler did much sitting in back then, his presence guaranteeing these fugitive affairs as memorable ones. Along the way, he joined forces with trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray for travels and recording. As it happens, this was one of the very finest modern jazz groups-in fact, Peacock and Murray were Ayler's most consistent companions as his art developed.

What qualities won him such immediately enthusiastic attention and admiration? Already, though still a young musician, his influences were far behind him; pertinently, he named Bechet and Lester Young, among many others, and obviously the sense of Rollins and Coleman is prime. Hear his Children solo: it is Rollins' methods in their most emotional terms, reproduced with Free means. His incredibly large, fully sonorous (Larry Kart: "The biggest human sound I ever heard") sound was the most evident aspect of a most sophisticated dynamic sensitivity. (Equally, or maybe even more importantly, nobody could play more softly, and, mainly, could more exactly delineate degrees and nuances of meaning. ) This music is a dramatic experience: the classic range of Ayler's perceptions was clarified by that precise construction and continuity.

Two aspects of his art were most revolutionary. Before him the ideas of microtones, "blue notes", dramatically flattened or sharpened shading originate at the beginning of jazz. In pre-Free days certain pianists (Monk, Herbie Nichols, Taylor, even Bud Powell) invented harmonies to distort or obliterate the common sense of specific tones and chord changes. Then Rollins, then Coleman, then Coltrane began to use the saxophone's specific overtones and harmonics capabilities as necessary effects. Ayler was the first to make such unusual-"freak", if you will-sounds a basis for his art.

As Ayler-haters love to point out, such weird noises come from kids first learning their horns. Now, Ayler began as a teenaged bluesman, and as he matured into a virtuoso tenorist he very thoughtfully explored all of his horn's possibilities. His mastering the overtones and harmonics ranges was his most revolutionary technical advance. I believe it was George Russell who years ago pointed out that African music is atonal, arhythmic, full of Ayler's kind of indeterminate note choices. If so, then Ayler's deliberated inexact pitches are a return to the basics of black music.

Equally important is Ayler's (and the Ayler groups') time. It's admirable that certain journalists originally tried to "sell" this music to a wider audience, but some love to repeat the canard that it's posited on conventional bop-swing 4/4 time. In fact, a fair amount of later Ayler is in 4/4,as are most of his composed themes in all periods. As he explained: "I like to play something that people can hum . . from simple melodies to complicated textures to simplicity again and then back to the more dense, the more complex sounds." In most of his solos, the theme is quickly abandoned; thereafter it demands a fanatic to hear 4/4 in his manner and accenting.

Ayler nullified conventional time. Emotionalism, lyricism and structure were his major interests, so pure freedom of time, tonality, pitch and sonority were fundamental. Ornette Coleman used to propose the ideal of the perfectly free, unbound musical statement. Ayler, then, was the first to realize this completely in his music, and since Spirits and Spiritual Unity and Ghosts, only a very few have even approx-imated Ayler's freedom.

Consider his great performances. He dominates Mothers, but that is a true communal realization, with a haunting, elegiac Cherry solo and Ayler's bittersweet conception. I recall critic Larry Kart's notion of artistic "masks": Ayler's big broad tones may often be optimistic, even exultant, but his lines in Mothers suggest a terrible sadness. The lack of tempo aids the again dynamic structure: every large phrase has its afterthought, for definition and, mainly, amplification-"This is true, and moreover, these are vital facts of this truth in addition, and even more, these further truths follow in emotional logic." Thus, as in the almost equally great Holy Spirit, beautiful phrases of heroic import are, in afterthought, clarified in terms of pain and acceptance.

* * *

An undertone of classic-Hamlet-like, let's say-melancholy pervades all this music. The themes almost always end in downward motives, even the pop songs he chose for My Name Is Albert Ayler. The isolated sequences drift slowly into sad descending lines; an agonized yearning is inherent in the frequent fast, rising long lines that eventually are smashed with the familiar growls and helpless momentary tenor eruptions.

Compare the four famous Ghosts to understand the breadth of Ayler's genius. One simply offers the theme, in all its jollity, in several tempos. The second, with delightful Peacock and especially Cherry, has Ayler destroying the theme with hilarious cynicism, then fleeing into strong, various "energy" lines. But the first trio Ghosts, a justly-praised work, adds dark, disturbed realizations in its extended length, while the great second trio Ghosts totally rejects the theme's pleasing good nature. Cruelly agonized stuttered phrases appear before the solo rises to a visionary catharsis with an incredible welter of fast lines in "unknown" pitches, booms, hurtful rising phrases.

Suddenly we realize that Ayler's comic episodes are slight masks for an extremely intense sense of black humor, that his ironies are the material of classic satire, that continuous change, extreme internal disorder and passion are eternal necessities resolved within his humanely understanding and responsible frame of reference.

It's a far cry from Coltrane, for one alternative. Coltrane's musical contradictions became brilliant conflicts that found satisfaction only in violence and continued agitation. He is usually considered the greater artist-yet Ayler's broad vision and the humane responsibility of his musical philosophy are the more life-sustaining principles. As listeners we recognize and internalize Coltrane's passionate conflicts, yet as modern men and women we need Ayler's bitter humor, his resigned sorrow, his fully sensitive tragic awareness as a condition of our lives at their most ideally humane.

True, we live in a time of progressively increasing disorientation, social destruction, institutional malice, with the result being, for us and even for great creators such as Ayler, increasing fear, ignorance, violence, escapism. Albert Ayler daily struggled for professional existence against the most hardened attitudes, the most inhuman reactions and conditions. It is most important in hearing his music to understand that he visualized life in more open, more sensitive, ideally even simpler terms. His entire career was totally opposed to the mainstream of modern American existence.

You'll notice that among younger-say, under-35-musicians, Ayler's music has proven as influential as Coleman's or Coltrane's. At least part of the reason is his beautiful partners during his great period. Sometimes Peacock unsuccessfully tried to evoke free wind phrasings on his bass, but on the whole his smiling, intellectual creations were among the best jazz bass playing between early Haden and current Malachi Favors. Murray by this time had (at last!) evolved a percussion style of total accent and ensemble involvement. Partly his revolutionary approach was born of necessity (imagine any of his predecessors-Roach, Richmond, Elvin Jones, etc .- in Ayler's groups); Murray is one of those inevitable crucial figures who appear in jazz when they are needed most. And after playing in Ornette's shadow and with the straightforward New York Contemporary Five, Cherry became, with Ayler, the perfect responsive group member, growing in technique and breadth within Ayler's comparatively loose, thematically-oriented designs.

John Tchicai and Roswell Rudd join them for the jam session LP, New York Eye and Ear Control. It might have been a disaster like Coltrane's Ascension, but the more sophisticated shared principles of free time and harmonic basis guarantee part of the music's success. AY has one of Cherry's most original, haunting solos among the communal improvisations, but ITT is better because Ayler's complete dominance has the others continually regrouping around him-in places, genuine ensemble improvisation emerges. (In mid 1964, don't forget, the idea of collective improvisation was still fresh and explorative-the ideas Ayler's group evolves here were to flower a few years later into the sophisticated Chicagoans' methods.)

By May Day, 1964, Ayler had added acolytes and a regular method of ordering group performances. Don Ayler tended to serve as a Cherry to Ayler's Ornette role, and Charles Tyler was a strong, more gracefully linear Ayler-influenced altoist. Their performances began with little skittery, repeated themes, or extra-raunchy marches, or Gay 90s-like maudlin ditties, or occasionally all of these. The themes were played with a captivating wholehearted fervor, the trumpet leading, the tenor making expansive harmonic decorations.

Usually Albert Ayler would offer a sadly sentimental, quavery, out-of-tempo solo with nagging afterthoughts, like a cranky grandmother who bakes apples pies and quietly farts a lot. A repetition of one of the initiating themes would introduce each soloist; they would take turns in whirlwind tempos, then join in ensemble improvisations. It was a delightful and usually surprisingly successful music, somewhat light in intent compared with Ayler's great works. The revolutionary techniques are evident, the solos-especially Albert Ayler's-are tremendously forceful, yet it lacks the breadth and sensitivity of Ayler's great period.

This general approach runs to Love Cry, about mid-1967. Bells is the group's first and most commonly-admired LP, but Spirits Rejoice is just as fine. The title track recalls Dan Morgenstern's remark, "Like a Salvation Army band on LSD" with its several themes, and D.C. is their best single work, truly excellent solos by the Ayler brothers and Tyler. Angels, by Albert, a frilly harpsichord, and Murray, returns to the great Ayler. From the beginnning we hear the techniques of overblown mush, with niggling harmonies and grace phrases. But this belies a theme of immensely poignant yearning. A heartbreaking vibrato emphasizes this sense of hopeless hope; the method is simply internalized theme and decorations-in the way Billie Holiday and Lester Young offered simply theme and decorations.

This band won Albert Ayler something of a wide audience. "Wide audience" usually means little to free musicians, but Ayler did move on LPs from ESP to the more fastidiously produced Impulses. The Greenwich Village LP recaptures the spirit of Spirits Rejoice and includes For John Coltrane, a long alto solo (played in his tenor style). Love Cry is eight of the "simple, folk-like" themes played over and over,with a minimum of Don Ayler improvising, Albert generally content to harmonically decorate the dry trumpet lead. By then Tyler was on his own, and even Murray had been replaced. Ayler's choices at this point represent a dangerous narrowing of scope from his original creative premises, and his last two LPs, the rhythm and-blues/rock/vocal works, represent a crisis in his conception.

* * *

Among some Free musicians there is a need to "meet the public"-to emphasize features of their music that appear to have wide popular appeal. It may be conscious or an unconscious need, but it has nothing to do with selling out or going commercial: a musician can attempt to present a broad message without debasing or falsifying it. The most likely explanation for his last two LPs is that this philosophically assured revolutionary was convinced of his ability to communicate within any medium.

So you have, in New Grass, quite excellent Ayler tenor over a dull rock rhythm section, with freshly trite and banal songs and singers performing some of the most uninspired material since LPs were invented. The very dark and shocking near unaccompanied tenor solo in the title track is essential Ayler art; solos in Heart Love, Sun Watcher, New Generation additionally present a somewhat more determinedly lyrical approach to the basic Ayler style, and they are also valuable. New Ghosts, a calypso, is played in the tone of the nastiest early-'50s r&b tenors, but the phrasing is remarkably Rollins-like -- indeed, except for the tone this could pass for a Rollins solo. There is Ayler's own singing "in tongues" here, too, with traces of his saxophone approach in the quavery vocal-a nice diversion.

In the end, it's good Ayler, and you can overlook the accompanying sinners. His last LP was his worst artistic mistake. In four of the six pieces, Ayler's tenor is secondary to ponderously banal, unreal out-of-tempo vocals. You quickly get the fear that Ayler really believed in such childlike lies as "A man is like a tree, a tree is like a man," or "Music is the healing force of the universe." His bagpipe piece is pretty ordinary, for him, and the saddest piece has a skillful, convincing rock-blues quartet with Ayler for the most part nagging unsuccessfully at moss-covered r&b phrases.

The average soul music fan would find this music hickish, the average rock fan would miss the necessary inhuman brutality or introverted sentimentalism. Ayler avoided the most popular or useful modern lies, but his own kind of humbug was hardly an improvement. Mostly, these last two LPs prove that Ayler really did remain creative and individualistic despite the surroundings.

Of Albert Ayler's value there is no question: for a time, at least, he was one of the several great jazz originals, and every one of his recorded works is important. Of his importance in the development of jazz, I've already noted his revolutionary ideas of saxophone technique, structure, ensemble organization. But I wonder if certain Coltrane-Pharoah Sanders works might have been conceived without Ayler's previous models of technique. Charles Tyler was certainly affected by Ayler's music, and most importantly, an entire movement of free jazzmen, the Chicagoans, formed their art during Ayler's ascendance: you can certainly hear Ayler in saxists Maurice McIntyre and Henry Threadgill; even Joseph Jarman's most advanced saxophone ideas suggest Ayler's techniques, and Roscoe Mitchell's work is a further step in the structurally and dynamically highly sensitive area that Ayler (and before him Rollins, Monk, Coleman and Lester Young) developed.

* * *

Does anyone disagree? Can anyone claim, at this stage of the dissolution of America, that Ayler's ideas were unimportant? Ayler's creations, even at the end, were far larger than life: his conflict and pain and poverty were those of a hero, albeit Ayler was a hero unfortunately like you and me in outward appearance. His was a classic art. His strange death prematurely deprived American music of all kinds of one of its outstanding vital forces. If we are to become a civilization, Ayler's kind of humanist understanding, his depth and complexity, even his kind of contrasting simplicities and innocences, must become part of our character. We cannot all be heroes, but it may be that we can someday be the more sensitive individuals Albert Ayler thought we might be.

Discographical Notes

Ayler's first LP, the Scandinavian night club trio set in a limited edition, is of course long unavailable. I do not own, additionally, two other important Ayler LPs: Spirits, recorded in Europe with a quartet including trumpeter Norman Howard, and Sunny Murray's first LP, Sunny's Time Now, produced by the American Jihad label, which Ayler nonetheless dominates and which also includes Don Cherry. Both are extremely unavailable, in Europe and here, and both are products of Ayler's great period, far superior to the later ESPs and Impulses.

My Name Is Albert Ayler is Fantasy 86016, and includes his first masterpiece, Summertime. 

Ghosts is Fontana SFIL 925/888 606 AY, with the two quartet Ghosts and Children, Holy Spirit, Vibrations,and Mothers; the better record stores often do have the Ghosts LP.

Spiritual Unity is ESP-Disk 1002, with the two trio Ghosts plus The Wizard and Spirits. Nowadays, all ESPs are in the Schwann Catalog, and good stores stock the ESPs anyway. This and the Fontana are the greatest Ayler collections.

Bells is ESP-Disk 1010; Spiritual Unity is ESP-Disk 1020; New York Eye And Ear Control is ESP-Disk 1016. Of Ayler's Impulse records, Albert Ayler In Greenwich Village, with For John Coltrane but without Charles Tyler, is A-9155; Love Cry is 9165; New Grass, with Heart Love, New Generation, Sun Watcher, and his sixth recorded Ghosts, is 9175; the unfortunate Music is the Healing Force of the Universe is 9191.

Ref : Down Beat April 1971