What's New

On 2nd December Perry Robinson passed away at the age of 80. He was one of the few clarinetists to make his mark in the heyday of Free Jazz back in the 60s and early 70s, recording with Archie Shepp and the JCOA among others. Although he never recorded with Albert Ayler, he did meet him in Spain during Albert’s early sojourn in Europe, and he recalled the meeting in his biography, Perry Robinson: The Traveler. There are obituaries at Jazz Times, The Wire and the Free Jazz Collective. There’s also a nice thread on Organissimo and this rather annoying comment on the Perry Robinson facebook page:

“JazzTimes has finally produced an obituary for Perry. The New York Times was aware of his death but chose not to run one.”

Sunny Murray

It’s a year since the death of Sunny Murray and to commemorate his passing The Wire has published an article by Pierre Crépon, ‘Playing the theory of relativity: Sunny Murray in Europe 1968-72’, accompanied by some previously unpublished photos by Thierry Trombert from 1971.

And the second part of Pierre’s interview with Noel McGhie, ‘Noel McGhie: Lacy, Tusques and Space Spies’, is now available at Point of Departure (the first part, conducted by Pierre and Jochen Behring, ‘Noel McGhie: Free Jazz, Paris and the Seventies’, is available here.)

Sheet Music

I’d like to thank Matt Smiley for letting me add his transcriptions of Albert Ayler tunes to the site. There are 114 pages of various versions of various tunes, which are available to download here as a zipped file. Matt used them for the concert at FoCoMX (at Fort Collins, Colorado) in April 2018, which is available in 3 parts on youtube. Part 1 (which I added here last June), Part 3, and here’s Part 2:

Harlem Hellfighters: James Reese Europe and The Absence Of Ruin

The third part of Jason Moran’s trilogy of multimedia concerts on the subject of Harlem’s jazz history, featuring the pioneer bandleader James Reese Europe received its American premiere at the Kennedy Center on 8th December. There’s an article about the project on the National Public Radio site and further information on youtube, but the reason I mention it here is this bit from the Washington Post review of the concert:

‘Nor was everything about Europe or ragtime. Moran interwove his tribute with meditations on the ruins of Weeksville — the first, long-forgotten settlement of Brooklyn by African American freedmen — and the relative absence of other African American historical structures. Much of this meditation took place on the aforementioned video screen, with stark video of Weeksville’s crumbling houses and abandoned theater, with Moran, Mateen and Waits sitting among them. But about halfway through the program, tenor saxophonist Brian Settles led the ensemble on a slow, haunting rendition of Albert Ayler’s “Ghosts” that highlighted the meditation and abstractly connected it to Europe (via Ayler’s love and use of ragtime and military marches).’

Ayler’s Mood

There’s a new Italian trio called Ayler’s Mood, featuring Pasquale Innarella on tenor and soprano sax, Danilo Gallo on bass and Ermanno Baron on drums. There’s a feature on the group on this Italian jazz site.

First of the year

And with apologies to Ronnie Scott.

Discographical Corner

There’s some strange stuff out there. Dirk Goedeking let me know that those odd mp3 collections from yukiss.ru have now reached No. 6, but they only seem to be available from Japan, so you’re on your own when it comes to negotiating this page. I found a peculiar 6 CD set on a couple of Korean (?) sites:

Forever Jazz Hits comprises various tracks from My Name Is Albert Ayler, Spirits, Goin’ Home, Spiritual Unity, New York Eye And Ear Control, Ghosts (3 tracks then the other three from Vibrations), The Hilversum Session, Spirits Rejoice, In Greenwich Village and a track entitled ‘I’m Determined To Walk With Jesus’ which is listed on the other site as from ‘Live At Riviera’.

A legitimate release, and quite a bargain if you haven’t been collecting jazz albums for 54 years, is Avantgarde-The New Thing in the ‘Milestones of Legends’ series, which contains as one of its 16 albums, Ayler’s The First Recordings Vol. 2. Also good to see the John Lewis Third Stream album, Jazz Abstractions and Jimmy Giuffre’s Western Suite included.

And then there’s this:

Another Dirk find, this one not the usual mp3 download only version of My Name Is Albert Ayler, but a compilation of that, volume 1 of The First Recordings and Spirits.

If you’re still after some real ‘Magic Winter Sounds’ then I’d suggest you try this selection from WGBO, which includes the mash-up of ‘Love Cry’ and ‘Christmas Wrapping’ from Mars Williams’ An Ayler Xmas - Volume 2.

And finally ...

As the Christmas spirit fast departs and over here in embattled little England we deploy gunboats to repel the swarthy foreigners invading our shores - President Trump take note because once you’ve got your wall up, the enemy will find other means to plant his flag on your bit of dirt - we should maybe try to dream ourselves back to happier times and use this as an aide-memoire. David Mittleman sent me the link to a catalogue on boo-hooray.com, where this was item 10. The description is as follows:

“10. Albert Ayler. Untitled Poster.

np: c. 1967. 13 1⁄2 x 19 1⁄2 in. poster, offset litho in color on partially coated stock.

A striking late 1960’s poster, featuring a mirrored image of Ayler playing over a background of pop op dots. No designer is attributed, and Ayler’s name is the only text visible on the poster. Nevertheless, the psychedelic lettering and the stylistic move of putting the photograph of Ayler within a circle is similar to the cover design of the 1967 LP In Greenwich Village on Impulse, which was done by Robert & Barbara Flynn.

Light crease to lower margin, with some toning and a touch of erosion due to insect damage at verso, small abrasions at tips to verso, and a single small pinhole to upper margin. Despite stated faults, the verso is bright and presents well.

Rare: this is the only example of the poster that we have ever seen.”

Not mentioned is the fact that the Ayler/rainbow image was also used on the posters for the concert at New York’s Hotel Diplomat on 28th April, 1968.

What’s New October - December 2018 is now in the Archives.

Happy New Year!

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