Listening to Ghosts: Albert Ayler 50 Years Later
Listening to Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings a half-century after Ayler's death
November marked the 50th year since Albert Ayler’s passing, when his body was found floating in a New York river. I’ve decided to mark the occasion by engaging with his two Village Vanguard records, collected on the Impulse set Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings.
I’ll start with an admission: I’m not really an Ayler expert. I’ve known people who live with these records; someone I used to follow on Twitter would actually play sax along with them (she was very cool; I forget her name). Myself, well I only really know Spirits Rejoice, and even then it’s not exactly one of my favourites. There, I find Ayler’s playing a little more free than I generally listen to. But yesterday I picked up this two-CD set and today I decided to write it up.
Live in Greenwich Village opens with a lone performance from March 1965, originally released on a compilation album. “Holy Ghost” just crashes out of the gate: Don Ayler (Albert’s brother - to avoid confusion I’ll refer to him by his whole name) blows runs up and down, with Sonny Murray crashing away at his kit. After a minute or so, Albert joins in, reaching the higher registers of his tenor like it’s trying to strangle it’s sound. There’s an interesting lineup here: besides the already mentioned, there’s both Joel Freedman on cello and Lewis Worrell on bass. Freedman steps up for an arco solo, and Worrell pushes things along with a thumping, propulsive riff. Its an exhilarating performance; it’s too bad the rest of this show either wasn’t taped or was lost.
The rest of the CD it taken up with a gig from December 1966, featuring both Ayler brothers, Michel Sampson on violin, both Harry Grimes and Harry Folwell on bass and Beaver Harris on drums. it opens with the slow swirl of “Truth is Marching In,” the first of a few performances that echo the marching band roots of jazz. But like a camera sliding out of focus, the Aylers keep darting around each other until the band kicks in, and Ayler hits a dazzling solo. Don Alyer’s playing sounds like a marching band that’s coming apart, going from riffs to blowing a frantic solo while Harris’ playing keeps pushing him forward with runs up and down his kit.
Meanwhile, “Devine Peacemaker” just builds up, and Ayler has a tremendous solo, overblowing and giving his horn a high, screechy tone before the band kicks back in. For a few moments it’s him and Harris crashing away on drums; it’s hard not to recall Coltrane’s live duels with Elvin Jones on One Down, One Up, recorded about a year earlier.
Speaking of duets, “Angels” closes out disc one with Ayler and an unknown pianist - the liners suggest it’s “probably” Call Cobbs Jr. Whoever it is, it’s gentle and sympathetic backing for him - Ayler’s tone is rich and full, and the playing dives back into the tradition, the runs and phrasing recalling pre-bop, stride days. Ayler’s playing is slow, plaintive and probing, showing a different side to him than the rest of this disc. Interestingly, the only other credit I could find for Cobbs in my Penguin Guide to Jazz was a Johnny Hodges disc from 1954 - one where he shares a credit with John Coltrane!
Disc two contains a concert from Feb. 1967, one with an even larger lineup. Both Aylers are still there, Sampson on violin and Harris is still on drums, but now Freedman is back on cello, and Bill Fowell and Alan Silva are on bass. But this isn’t a lush Ayler With Strings record. It opens with “For John Coltrane,” an extended piece with the strings playing is alternately jagged and woozy, and Ayler’s emotional playing. Using an alto sax, he’s pushing himself, playing lines that swirl and go out of focus. It segues neatly into “Change Has Come,” which has the full band crashing in: Don Ayler plays riffs that push against his brother’s sax, while Harris’ propulsive drumming keeps the band moving forward.
In the liner notes - originally included when these tracks were first issued over 50 years ago - Ayler talks a little bit about why he has two bass players: “You can go in two different harmonic directions,” he said, “which are integrally connected so you remain in organic unity.” It makes sense on a performance like “Change…” where the band seems like it’s madly going off in all directions, but comes back on a beat: the two basses give space for Ayler to here, Don to go there and Sampson to do his thing.
“Light in Darkness” opens with Sampson playing a simple phrase on his violin and both Aylers playing in harmony, and recalls “Truth…” in it’s phrasing and the way Ayler trades off with Sampson. “Heavenly Home,” meanwhile recalls the droning viola of the early Velvet Underground, especially in the way the music keeps revolving and going around and around and…
Both “Spiritual Rebirth” and “Infinite Spirit” open with marches but quickly turn gears. “Spirit” goes into an interesting place with the strings working in a higher register while Ayler’s sax plows ahead in a march sort of idiom. Things are loose, almost ragged, but maybe that’s the point. The disc closes with two lengthy numbers, “Omega is the Alpha” and “Universal Thoughts”, the last featuring trombonist George Steele; it’s also the only previously unreleased track on this set.
Honestly, the second disc didn’t appeal to me as much as the first. It’s looser, and almost rambling at times. And after a while, I find that Ayler’s music kind of blends together for me: the playing is cool, and Ayler’s solos are generally interesting, but the way they go from march-styles to free-form soloing… after a while it kind of glazed over for me.
And I think for me, that’s the thing about Ayler and his music. He was more than a little inspired by Coltrane, and in a pretty short career - only about eight years between his first record and his death - he made a major accomplishment, fusing free jazz with New Orleans brass roots, not to mention an intense, almost blistering style of sax playing. But, and maybe this is my taste here alone, I find a little of him goes a long way. The intense duets on the first disc of this set did a lot for me, but by the end of the second, I was finding the music a little busy and cluttered. I understand he was going for something by having practically a string quartet in his ensemble, but i can’t help but feel that too many cooks spoil the soup.
Still, Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings is a remarkable document. There isn’t much live Ayler out there - the sessions on hatART seem to go in and out of print almost constantly - and given a player of his talent and intensity, I’m glad there’s some around.
Now if only someone would issue Holy Ghost on Bandcamp or something…