|
|
||||||||||
 |
|
|
“One day, everything will be, as it should be.” |
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
Please click the link below to transfer to the new Albert Ayler site: This site originally went online at this address (www.ayler.supanet.com) in June 2000. However, five years later the increased interest in Albert Ayler created bandwidth problems and I was also running out of space. Therefore, as from October 2005, this site will no longer be updated, so for the latest news about Albert Ayler please transfer to the new site at www.ayler.org/albert. If you have any links to this site on your own sites, I would appreciate it if you would change them to the new address www.ayler.org/albert. Thanks to Supanet for hosting this site for the past five years, and thanks to Grainger Reece for providing the new site at www.ayler.org/albert. Sorry for any inconvenience. Patrick Regan
September 1 2005 News New Grass re-released |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
According to the Verve site, Albert Ayler’s New Grass will be re-released on September 13th. Although it has been available for some time as a Japanese import (occasionally listed in distinctly non-pc fashion as “New Glass”), I believe this is the first time it’s been made generally available on CD. I still won’t be buying it though. * My Name Is Albert Ayler in Seattle Apparently the U.S. premiere of Kasper Collin’s film, “My Name Is Albert Ayler”, did not take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago in June (due to ‘circumstances beyond our control’ according to the GSFC website). However, the film is due to be shown in Seattle in October. The Northwest Film Forum is showing the film at 9 pm from October 26th to 30th, and Kasper Collin will be attending the ‘West Coast Premiere’ on the 26th. * Ayler in Montreal Not the film this time, but Stuart Broomer’s account of a September 1967 meeting with Ayler in Canada, first published in Coda Magazine (No. 272, March/ April 1997), is now available online in The Last Post section of The Jazz Journalists Association’s Jazz House site. Well worth reading, particularly since it includes a description of an Ayler gig with a line-up which, as far as I know, was never recorded - Don on trumpet, Albert on saxes, Call Cobbs on piano, Bill Davis on bass and Rashied Ali on drums. * New Ayler Site Not sure how new this German Ayler site is, but I’ve only just come across it. It’s the work of Boris Chomski and is very neat - unlike the great shambling affair that this place has become. * Live on the Riviera Steve Tintweiss emailed to say that the Artist Direct site now has one-minute clips of ‘Live On The Riviera’ online and he also added this about the recording: “This was the one time I was fortunate enough to get to play some extended trios and duets with Albert Ayler, plus a couple of short solos, which was well recorded from the radio feed. The first night concert concluded with a trio version of the new free-jazz anthem ‘Ghosts’.” * some words about Norman Howard As I was just about to put this month’s update online, I received the following email from Roy Morris, which I thought I should add here: “ i first heard about Albert Ayler in 1964 and bought Spirits on Debut 146 later that year. this danish lp was sold by Collet's, the communist book-shop in London. i loved the music and was thrilled by Albert's highly original trumpeter, NORMAN HOWARD. i read that George Coppens of Osmosis Records had been in New York and discovered an unreleased session by Norman. but when i contacted him, George had shelved his idea of releasing the music, believing Norman's playing to be inept. i had a cassette copy which i listened to frequently. in 1988 i was in a position to offer to buy the master tape. i produced 100 cassette copies and sold it as SIGNALS on Homeboy music 1. the music was greeted with ecstatic reviews and great enthusiasm from those who bought it. with the proceeds i purchased 2 more unmastered tapes i discovered mr. coppens owned. these were massive 1/2" reels, whose boxes bore Bernard Stollman's writing and had clearly once "belonged" to ESP-DISK. i added this music to Signals and put it out as side b of Homeboy music 2 entitled BURN, BABY, BURN in 1993. this time the plan was to distribute it through William Parker's Stork Music setup. unfortunately this went out of business, so i gave the remaining copies to musicians i felt would be interested. hardly a commercial enterprise, but i was contacted by Henry Rollins (ex. Black Flag) who thought the music was great, and wanted to release it "with significant publicity" on his own 2.13.61 label. i happily sold him the masters in 1997. since then, there has been only resounding silence. i was never able to make contact with norman, or find out what became of him. his musical partner, Joe Phillips converted to Islam, changing his name to Yusef Mumin, and moved to Milwaukee. Norman also became a Muslim in the early 80's and may have followed Yusef there. incidentally, Sunny Murray, recalling the Spirits session, remembered Norman playing his own compositions, including Witches And Devils, for two hours before demonstrating the music on Sunny's drums, and then switching to alto saxophone ! if any-one out there would like to hear the music of Norman Howard, close friend of Albert Ayler, send whatever you like [*] and i'll be happy to make them a copy of BURN, BABY, BURN. maybe we can make something happen. this music deserves to be heard. ” * Roy included his home address in Scotland at this point, but I thought it best to omit it. So, if you want to take advantage of Roy’s offer, send him an email. * And finally... Googling around for Norman Howard (in case there was somebody out there who knows what happened to him), I came across an interview with Leo Smith on the Vancouver Jazz site, which included the following: “There's another person we shouldn't leave out and I think he's one of the major innovators on the trumpet, Don Ayler.” And talking of Don, Tim Witham let me know about a version of his ‘Our Prayer’ on the CD(ep), Sounds Like A Sandwich, from the Cato Salsa Experience and The Thing with Joe McPhee. It’s a 20 minute live performance, which as well as Don’s tune includes versions of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘Art Star’. I’ve added it to the Versions page. *** New Additions to the Site What’s Available page updated for September. What’s New page from January to May 2005 transferred to the archives. *** Acknowledgements Roy Morris, Steve Tintweiss and Tim Witham. *** August 1 2005 News My Name Is Albert Ayler Kasper Collin’s film, “My Name Is Albert Ayler”, is due to be shown at the Odense Film Festival in Denmark on Sunday 14th August and Monday 15th August. The Festival website has the following information about the film and its director: |
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
Albert Ayler T-shirts Don’t worry I’m not going into the T-shirt business but I did come across this on ebay: |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Maybe we can take it as an indication of Ayler’s growing popularity in the world, or maybe not. There was a copy of The Last Album on ebay at the same time, with a starting price of $10, which attracted no bids at all. Admittedly it’s not one of Ayler’s best, but it is a bit of a rarity, with a very limited release on CD, and it’s certainly been unavailable for the last five years since this site went online, so you’d expect some interest. So, I thought I’d add an mp3 of ‘Water Music’ to the Last Album page in the discography. *** New Additions to the Site New review of the Revenant box set from the ‘Double Bassist’ magazine added to the Holy Ghost review page. What’s Available page updated for August. *** Acknowledgements Kees Hazevoet, Steve Tintweiss and Eric Weddle. *** July 1 2005 News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||||
My Name Is Albert Ayler Folkets Bio, the distributors of the new Swedish Ayler documentary, have some interesting promotional material on their site, including the posters above and below (and a large version of the photo of the Ayler band ‘havin’ a fag’ outside Slug’s). It looks like the film is a hit in Sweden, but I’ve yet to see a review of last month’s shows in Chicago. If anyone saw it at the Gene Siskel Film Center, I’d love to know what kind of reception it got. |
||||||
 |
||||||
* The Albert Ayler Project Graham Mackeachan sent me the following details of Ayler happenings in Bristol this month: THE ALBERT AYLER PROJECT (Thursday July 14th / 8pm / £4) “A concert inspired by the free and spiritual music of one of the most charismatic and mythologised jazz musicians of them all. FIRST PERFORMANCE: SECOND PERFORMANCE: In memory of John Boulding, musician 1947-2005” The Albert Ayler Project was put together by Roger Skerman in 1991, and has performed Ayler's music off and on since then, mostly in the South West and London. * Frank Wright Following last year’s release of Holy Ghost, which included Frank Wright’s session with the Ayler band at Cleveland’s La Cave, the new double CD from ESP ‘Frank Wright - The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings’ could be of interest to Ayler fans. It combines the two original ESP albums, ‘Frank Wright Trio’ and ‘Your Prayer’ - the latter a 1967 session featuring Steve Tintweiss on bass. * Just a thought... I received an email from Chris Iacono asking whether the sound quality of the new ESP release of Bells/Prophecy is better than the version on the ZYX label. I had to admit I had no idea, since I've never been in the position where the money has been 'strong enough' to collect all the variants in the Ayler catalogue. However it did make me wonder whether there was any variation in the sound quality of the different CD editions of the Ayler albums. If there are any dedicated Ayler collectors out there who can shed some light on the matter I'd like to hear from you. *** New Additions to the Site An 18 page article from the November 1980 edition of the Dutch magazine, Jazz Nu - ‘De Schreeuw van Albert Ayler’ by What’s Available page updated for July. *** Acknowledgements Mikael Andersson, Maarten Derksen, Graham Mackeachen and Steve Tintweiss. *** June 1 2005 News U.S. Premiere of Ayler Film in Chicago “My Name Is Albert Ayler” (aka ‘the Swedish Ayler film’) is being shown in Chicago this month as part of the 9th annual Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music. The film is being shown at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Sunday 19th June at 5.15 pm, and on Thursday 23rd June at 8.15 pm. The Empty Bottle site has the following information: SUN. 6/19/05 (5:15pm; (tickets available through The Gene Siskel Film Center)) Thanks to Jason Guthartz for letting me know about this. *** New Releases Holy Ghost on vinyl As mentioned a couple of months ago, Revenant have started to release tracks from the Holy Ghost box set on vinyl. The first volume is a triple LP set on clear vinyl and I’ve entered what details I have so far on the Holy Ghost page of the Discography. There’s a brief review of the vinyl set (and one of Live on the Riviera) on the Volcanic Tongue site. * ESP Continuing their reissue program, ESP have released a new CD coupling of Bells and Prophecy - ESP 4006 (cover shots below). Although the original, single-sided, coloured vinyl edition of Bells will always have iconic status in the story of Ayler and avant-garde jazz, it really doesn’t make much sense to release a 20 minute CD, so it’s good to see ESP thinking of its customers’ pockets and coupling it with Prophecy. |
||||||
 |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
|
|
Ayler Clips Steve Tintweiss let me know about the J&R Music site which has brief clips from every track on the Holy Ghost box set and the Artists Direct site which has 1 minute clips of the tracks on Nuits de la Fondation Maeght. The Artists Direct site also has clips from other albums on its Albert Ayler page. * Marc Ribot’s Spiritual Unity As mentioned last month, Marc Ribot’s Ayler tribute band (featuring Henry Grimes on bass), has a new CD out. There’s a review on the Guardian site, and the first part of their April 18th Amsterdam concert is archived on the 4FM: is dit nog wel Jazz? site. The second part is due to be broadcast on Saturday, June 25th at 00.02 am (i.e. two minutes after midnight on Friday) and this link should take you to the live broadcast. * John Wilkes Booze I came across this by accident, following a link from Jason Guthartz’s Restructures site. John Wilkes Booze, an R&B band from Bloomington, Indiana, released a series of five CD EPs in 2002 entitled ‘Five Pillars of Soul’ - number three was Albert Ayler. The CDs now seem to be out of print, but there is an mp3 of one of the tracks (They Don't Like Me In This Town) from Volume 3 on their website and it’s well worth a listen. The sleevenotes to the Ayler tribute are also on the site, mostly culled from the Jeff Schwartz biography (where would we all be without him), but there’s a nice account of a visit to Ayler’s grave. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|||||||||||
New Additions to the Site Maarten Derksen sent me a review of Holy Ghost by Remco Takken (who wrote the sleevenotes for the Calibre reissues of the ESP catalog) which I’ve added to the Holy Ghost reviews page. And thanks to ebay I’ve added a couple of pictures to the site - the cover of the Crescendo release of The First Recordings and the label of the ESP 45” single with Ornette Coleman’s ‘Sadness’ on Side A and Albert Ayler’s ‘Holy Family’ on Side B. I’ve put that at the bottom of the Spirits Rejoice page. What’s Available page updated for June. *** Acknowledgements Maarten Derksen, Jason Guthartz, Jeff Stockton and Steve Tintweiss. ***
|
|||||||||||
This site went online in June 2000. The ‘What’s New’ pages from previous years are available below: *** If you have any information about Albert Ayler (new CD releases, unreleased recordings, personal reminiscences) or if you can fill in any of the gaps in the discography, or correct any mistakes on the site, then email me, Patrick Regan at ayler@supanet.com. The Message Board is for those wishing to discuss aspects of Ayler’s life and work, so post your topics there. That’s also the best place if you have any questions about Albert Ayler that aren’t covered on this site. Hopefully the real Ayler experts (I’m just a fan) will stop by and give you the answers. Finally, if you just want to make a brief comment about the site, I’ve added a Guestbook. |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
Guest Book
|
|||||||||||
home | biography | discography | music | archives | links | news |
|||||||||||
