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“26 Nov. Albert Ayler - OTD 50 years ago Albert Ayler was found dead in East River. He & his music have meant a great deal to me in my life, & in many others. Until today no other music has had the same transformative effect on me. For the last two years I have worked quite hard to prepare the documentary My Name Is Albert Ayler I made between 1998 - 2005 for a proper rerelease. We are close now in making this happen, and I feel confident to be able to give some definitive news about this within the next few months. Someone sent me this recent comment re Ayler from Facebook. It's a recollection from a person named Greg Farr re watching the documentary during its premiere run in NYC in 2007. This comment was well written and touching to read for me, and everything I ever could wish for when making this film. Thank you Greg. And thank you Albert Ayler! ♥ R.I.P.”




	Radio Dirk also spotted this 5 part series devoted to Albert Ayler, broadcast from 23rd to 27th November in Italian, on the Swiss radio station, RSI. This is the first episode, and the rest are available here if you scoot down a bit. And Johann Haidenbauer let me know about a programme about Ayler on the Austrian radio station, Ö1, which is due to be broadcast at 20:55 on Sunday 24th January, in the ‘Ö1 Art Sunday: Milestones’ series: From the free sound of the old brass bands to free jazz: Albert Ayler * Still Technically Christmas If you want to continue to drag out the merry season then the two Mars Williams concerts of Ayler tunes and carols, which were live on youtube on 18th and 19th December, are still available. There’s a preview of the concerts on New City Music..

	And this is the second one:

	Some Gleanings Rico Gatson I mentioned the Mars Williams concerts in an extra post on 15th December (everything has now been consigned to the lower depths of the Archives Dept.) and there was also an art exhibition featuring work by Rico Gatson at New York’s Miles McEnery Gallery, which closed on 19th December. I came across a short review of the exhibition on The Art Newspaper. * Harold Budd Harold Budd, the composer, has died at the age of 84, and is mentioned here because he did have a brief association with Albert Ayler when they were both in the army. This from the Guardian’s obituary: ‘Born in 1936 to a poor family in Los Angeles, Budd’s first musical love was jazz - “black culture that freed me from the stigmata of going nowhere in a hopeless culture”, he later said -€ and after being drafted into the US army he played as a drummer in a regimental band alongside the saxophonist Albert Ayler, who would also go on to become an icon of avant-garde American music.’ (To tell you the truth I know nothing about Harold Budd’s music - I think because I always confused him with Roy Budd, an English jazz pianist and film composer, who used to turn up on TV variety shows in the 60s - in fact I actually typed ‘Roy’ instead of ‘Harold’ when I started this item. Please forgive my ignorance.) * Judy Stuart Steve Tintweiss has conductor and music director credits on this new release on the INKY DoT Media label. Click the picture below for the full story:



	New Grass comes in at No. 28 of this list of The Quietus’ Reissues etc. Of The Year 2020 complete with a description with which I do not concur. * Dawda Jobarteh and Stefan Pasborg



	This is not new - released in 2016 - but I seem to have missed it. Duets for kora and percussion, the album features versions of ‘Bells’ and ‘Change Has Come’, which, as I’ve said before, is my favourite Ayler tune.

	The First ‘Ghosts’ Of 2021

	What’s New September - December 2020 is now in the Archives. ******* This site went online in June 2000. All the previous ‘What’s New’ pages are available below: Archives * If you have any information about Albert Ayler, or any questions or corrections, then please email me, Patrick Regan.

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