What's New

I will be a guest from 3-6 pm ET. We will be spinning tracks from the Revelations boxset and discussing Albert Ayler. Joining me will be musician and co-producer Jeff Lederer. The 4-CD / 5-LP deluxe set is the first time release of both complete Foundation Maeght July 1970 concerts as recorded by Radio France. Producer Zev Feldman obtained permissions from the INA to release the deluxe albums for the Elemental label in Spain. The audio quality is far superior to all prior releases of the partial performances. Live stream on WKCR.org.

ALBERT AYKER

MARY MARIA PARKS

CALL COBBS

STEVE TINTWEISS

ALLEN BLAIRMAN’

July 4 2024

Ayler all-dayer

Richard Koloda let me know about this:

‘Good news. WKCR.FM will pre-empt the schedule for an all day Albert Ayler Birthday broadcast on July 13th. This will mark Albert’s 88th birthday, had he not left us almost 54 years ago. This is the first time in many years celebrating what used to be an annual WKCR 89.9 FM NYC event. (From Steve Tintweiss's website).’




	July 1 2024 And the other side Last month when I was working on the update the Hat Hut site was down, but now it’s back and here’s the other side of the latest addition to the ezzthetics-Revisited Series.





		Three Items from Cleveland courtesy of Richard Koloda. A census return from 1940 including the Ayler family (Albert is three years old). A couple of pages from the Cleveland City Directory - Albert is listed as a student, his father, Edward, a machine operator at the Tapco plant in Euclid. And then there’s this:

This is the application form for Albert Ayler’s gravestone in the military section of the Highland Park Cemetery. Richard reckons that the ‘Vietnam mistake’ was more to do with whoever filled out the form wanting to save the Ayler family a bit of money, since “one got a free gravestone if one served in the military during wartime”. Which is a better explanation than an earlier one I heard that there were just so many markers already stamped ‘Vietnam’ that Albert was just given one of those. Still, now we know who was actually responsible for the error.

Thanks to Richard and here’s a picture he sent me of his book, Holy Ghost: The Life And Death Of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler, for sale in the iconic City Lights Bookshop.

Jazz Podium 2020

Four years ago there was a bit of a kerfuffle regarding a couple of fragments of music which were suspected of including Albert Ayler. These were placed on youtube and the German magazine, Jazz Podium, included an assessment by Ben Young in its February, 2020 edition.

Dirk Goedeking alerted me to this and, after an initial piece in the February ‘What’s New’, followed it up in March with some further explanation and a little more speculation.

Now, Dirk has contacted Jazz Podium and they’ve agreed to allowing the articles to be added to this site. I have placed them in the ‘Articles’ section (a few too many pages to duplicate here). They comprise:

Gone by John Corbett Jazz Podium, February 2020, pp. 9 - 12 - Germany

Ist er das? (Is it him?) by Ben Young Jazz Podium, February 2020, pp.13-14 - Germany

The Unanswered Question by Peter Brötzmann

The first item, by John Corbett, is a four page pre-release of his upcoming book The Last Days of Albert Ayler. Still upcoming apparently. It is mentioned in a 2019 interview in The Rumpus as follows:

‘... I’ve been working on a small, poetic book on Albert Ayler’s death. There are three weeks in which his whereabouts are officially unaccounted for before his body was discovered. That unaccounted time is, for me, tragic and very suggestive.’

In another interview, this time with Jazz Weekly, there’s the following intriguing exchange:

FJ: Being a Down Beat critic, give me your five favs?

JOHN CORBETT: Numero uno, Spiritual Unity by Albert Ayler Trio. Number two, Conquistador by Cecil Taylor. Number three, Derek Bailey's Notes. Number four, Peter Brotzmann's Nipples. Number five, Alex Schlippenbach Trio's Elf Bagetellen.

FJ: I'm curious why you would pick Ayler's Spiritual Unity number one.

JOHN CORBETT: It's my favorite record.

FJ: How many times have you spun it?

JOHN CORBETT: Hundreds. I've noticed something about it that I have never heard anyone else mention, which is that in the middle of one of the tracks, this is to brag that I think I know it better than anybody else (laughing). In the middle of one of the tracks, there is a myth about that record. It is an interesting myth. It claimed that the engineer ran screaming from the room in fear. In fact, it seems that the engineer didn't even know that they had already started performing. So there was some misunderstanding between the engineer and the artists, who were already playing and in the middle of one of the tracks, you can hear, there is about six seconds of test tone. Nobody has ever heard it, in part because it blends in a little bit with the music because Albert kind of wailing on it.

FJ: Right after we hang up I am pulling the recording and listening for it.

JOHN CORBETT: Yeah, check it out.

The second item is the one relating to the music fragments by Ben Young, and the third is a poem by Peter Brötzmann.

Thanks to Dirk Goedeking, and thanks to Jazz Podium.

Pathways To (Free) Jazz Cello

Pierre Crépon has a new playlist feature on The Wire, this time focussing on cellos in (free) jazz. Beginning with Fred Katz with Chico Hamilton and including Joel Freedman with Albert Ayler. Great stuff.

Youtube roundup

Wadada Leo Smith talks about his composition, ‘Albert Ayler, a Meditation in Light’ from his new album, Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake Paths and Gardens.

Dirk Goedeking spotted this. The 1981 film by Ron Mann featuring Paul Bley, Bill Dixon, Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor, Imagine The Sound.

And this is Ornettiquette (featuring Jeff Lederer) at Bop Shop Records last month.

What’s New April to June 2024 has been sent to the vaults.

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This site went online in June 2000. All the previous ‘What’s New’ pages are available below: