2024July

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.

***

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 10 2024

WKCR Albert Ayler Birthday Broadcast

And just a quick follow-up to Richard Koloda’s note below, this time from Steve Tintweiss:

‘Mark your calendar July 13th 2024.

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’

***

August 1 2024

But still, they come!

When Dirk Goedeking sent me this we both got a bit excited over the following extract from the sleevenotes:

“A long life can contain a certain amount of waste. Live long enough and posterity doesn’t notice the occasional unproductive gap. A short life adds value to every moment and every creative act. This new issue of Albert Ayler’s brief association with Don Cherry includes further material from their time in Copenhagen, a period when the saxophonist daily reinvented the themes that were coursing through his mind, breath and fingers. These are not a collector’s fetishes. These are fresh documents of a music mind working, day by day. – Brian Morton”

The CD is not due for release until 9th August and no tracklist was given on the Presto Music or Soundohm sites, so we were, let us say, cautiously optimistic that 'includes further material from their time in Copenhagen' and 'fresh documents' meant there might be some newly unearthed material of the Ayler/Cherry Quartet. Unfortunately our hopes were quickly dashed when Dirk found a tracklist on this Japanese site and it looks like another repackaging of familiar material. So this time it looks like the double CD set includes the three albums originally released as Ghosts, The Hilversum Session and The Copenhagen Tapes. These had a previous incarnation in Hat Hut's Revisited strand with Ghosts being twinned with Spirits (aka Witches and Devils) as Albert Ayler Quartets 1964 Spirits To Ghosts Revisited (ezz-thetics 1101) and The Hilversum Session and The Copenhagen Tapes comprising Albert Ayler Quartet With Don Cherry European Recordings Autumn 1964 Revisited (ezz-thetics 1107). Of course, the Japanese site may have the tracklist wrong but I doubt it and I'll confirm it after the album has been officially released. It does make a kind of sense to repackage all the sessions of the Ayler/Cherry Quartet in this way but still - bugger!

Record Reviews

Hat Hut’s last release, Live Greenwich Village To Love Cry Revisited (see below), is reviewed by John Eyles on the All About Jazz site.

And Don Ayler’s 3 LP set, In Florence 1981 (available here) gets an extensive review on Zen Archer’s Aural Surfing Odyssey.

Gone again

Last month I added the first part of John Corbett’s extract from his ‘forthcoming’ book, The Last Days of Albert Ayler, which was published in the German magazine, Jazz Podium, in February, 2020. Corbett’s extract was concluded in the following, March, issue of the magazine, and I have now placed these pages in the Articles section. I’d like to thank Dirk Goedeking again for acquiring permission from Jazz Podium to add these pages to this site.

Die Like A Dog and WEBO

30 years after it first appeared, fragments of music, life and death of ALBERT AYLER is being re-released for a remastered double-vinyl set. More information at The Free Jazz Collective.

And also from the same site (although we drift further from Mr. Ayler) news of a fascinating release from the Black Editions Archive of a 2 hour live set of a trio comprising Charles Gayle, William Parker and Milford Graves. More details at bandcamp.

Ghosts (various)

Dirk Goedeking found another variant of the sheet music for ‘Ghosts’, this one for Bb clarinet by Andoni Penela. I’ve added it to the Sheet Music section.

Dirk also came across this -

‘an artwork by Tracey Slater titled “Ghosts in Love”. The tags tie it clearly to the “Spiritual Unity” album. Very weird, maybe not for your site, but I thought you should know about it.’

And now we do.

All I can bring to the party is this month’s youtube version of ‘Ghosts’, this time for guitar:

Fondation Maeght

The 60th anniversary of the Fondation Maeght continues apace with a couple of concerts:

‘Festive evening: 60^th anniversary
Sunday, July 28th

A unique evening of musical delights in the Miró Labyrinth... In the first part of the evening, Thomas Enhco and Vassilena Serafimova will reinterpret classical music from a contemporary perspective. In the second part, DJ Marina Trench will mix house vinyl for a festive evening with multiple nods to the history of music and dance at the Fondation Maeght.’

And on 8th and 9th August:

‘Gilles Peterson presents Impressions
inviting his artist-friends for two jazz evenings
Thursday 8^th and Friday 9^th August

The Fondation Maeght continues its month of celebrations in music... Gilles Peterson presents Impressions, two evenings to celebrate jazz at the Fondation Maeght, commemorating the Fondation Maeght’s legendary concerts: Duke Ellington, Albert Ayler, Ella Fitzgerald ... He invites his artist-friends: on Thursday 8th August, Kahil El Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble and on Friday 9th, Muriel Grossmann Naïssam Jalal & Rhythms of Resistance.’

Politics

Staying in France (and nice to see they can still shock the English - the troglodytes at GBNews were incensed by the depiction of Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ recreated by drag queens in the Olympics Opening Ceremony) Pierre Crépon has a piece on The Wire entitled ‘The Old Music and the New Fascists’ concerning the music of François Tusques and his Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, which is currently being reissued by French label Souffle Continu. Well worth a read. (It does look like France dodged a bullet, and with Biden’s withdrawal from the Presidential race maybe the U.S. has too - whereas we’re just stuck with ‘New Labour’ again.)

Visions of Albert Ayler: The Life and Death of a Free Jazz Pioneer

Not published yet, but fingers crossed, here’s the prospective cover of Dean Westerfield’s graphic novel.

And finally . . .

From Dirk:

‘An unobstrusive post by johnbloombergissman that somehow touched me. His comment is "I choose to believe that the sticker on the right was posted to honor the great Albert Ayler. And that the sign on the left that says quiet please means shut up and listen to him.”’

September 1 2024

Albert Ayler With Don Cherry 1964 Recordings First Visit Completed

As expected, the latest Ayler release from Hat Hut Records is just a repackaging of all the 1964 European recordings of the Ayler/Cherry quartet. It is now available on bandcamp and there’s also a 2 disc CD version. There’s a review of the release by Chris May at All About Jazz. Dirk Goedeking sent me the sleevenotes, which offer a new take on Albert Ayler and his collaboration with Don Cherry.

Patty Waters (11/3/1946 - 29/6/2024)

Sad to report the death of Patty Waters, Although they never performed together, there is an Ayler connection. since he heard her singing at a club and recommended her to Bernard Stollman. The result was her debut album on ESP, Sings.

Another Ayler connection : the bassist on that track is Steve Tintweiss. More from him later.

Random Cuttings

Dirk Goedeking first let me know about the above, and he also sent a few other items he spotted. Here are the links:

- a concert poster with Albert on it. It advertises a trio concert at Trinity College Chapel in Hartford, CT. Along comes a video from the chapel.

- NYEAEC is part of the radio broadcast “The Sound Of Pictures” on xray.fm.

- an advertising videoclip for Gilles Peterson's "Impressions" at the Maeght Foundation. Three screenshots from the “le dernier concert” - teaser are used.

- another videoclip. The Ohiochannel celebrates Black History Month.

[Sorry, I can’t let that last one go without comment. The description of Albert Ayler runs as follows:

‘Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Albert Ayler was an accomplished jazz musician. Often credited as the godfather of "free jazz", Ayler broke away from conventional jazz traditions, which were reliant on tempo and harmony. Instead, Albert Ayler paved the way for more creativity in jazz, with his mixed melodies and improvisations.’

‘Often credited as the godfather of “free jazz”.’ How often? I would have thought if anyone was the Godfather of Free Jazz (pace Lennie Tristano) it was Sun Ra. And I’m not sure Albert ‘paved the way for more creativity in jazz’; I think that was Ornette Coleman. And as for ‘mixed melodies and improvisations’ - isn’t that just jazz? I suspect the cold, dead hands of A.I. More of that later.)

Come to think of it, I should add this to the Fondation Maeght clip. It came with the regular F.M. newsletter:

‘Le jazz à la Fondation Maeght : une longue histoire

Jazz at the Fondation Maeght: a long story

Albert Ayler pendant les Nuits de la Fondation, 1970 - photo Claude Gaspari - archives Fondation Maeght

Les liens étroits qui unissent le jazz à la Fondation Maeght remontent aux premières passions d'Aimé Maeght qui, à 19 ans, crée avec des amis le Banana's King Jazz Band. La Fondation accueille ensuite, dès ses débuts, des grands noms du jazz : Ella Fitzgerald y donne un concert historique avec Yves Montand pour l'inauguration en 1964, Duke Ellington suivra pour les Nuits de la Fondation de 1966, tout comme Albert Ayler en 1970, et bien d'autres musiciens.

Cet été, pour célébrer les 60 ans de la Fondation, le jazz est mis à l'honneur : les concerts des amis de Gilles Peterson les 8 et 9 août prochains rendront hommage à ces grandes figures qui ont fait l'histoire du Jazz à la Fondation !

Jazz and the Fondation Maeght have always been closely linked, from Aimé Maeght's earliest passions when, at the age of 19, he formed the Banana's King Jazz Band with some friends. From the outset, the Fondation has welcomed some of the biggest names in jazz: Ella Fitzgerald gave a historic concert for the inauguration in 1964, Duke Ellington was next to perform for the Nuits de la Fondation in 1966, as did Albert Ayler in 1970, and many other musicians.

This summer, to celebrate the Foundation's 60th anniversary, jazz is celebrated: the concerts by Gilles Peterson's friends on 8 and 9 August will pay tribute to these great figures who have shaped the history of jazz at the Fondation!’

Do I need to add a comment - oh, I can’t be bothered.

Later

Steve Tintweiss emailed me with his biography generated by an A.I. bot. Here it is:

‘META AI Inquiry March 30, 2024 4:52 AM

My name is Meta AI. Think of me like an assistant who’s here to help you learn, plan, and connect. What can I help you with today?

Tell me about musician Steve Tintweiss.

Steve Tintweiss (1946-2022) was an American double bassist and guitarist, best known for his work in the free jazz and avant-garde music scenes. He was a prominent figure in the 1970s loft jazz movement in New York City, performing and recording with various musicians, including Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray, and Burton Greene.

Tintweiss was born in New York City and began playing music at an early age. He started on guitar but later switched to double bass, which became his primary instrument. He was self-taught and developed a unique playing style that blended elements of jazz, classical, and improvisational music.

Throughout his career, Tintweiss performed and recorded with a wide range of musicians, including Alan Silva, Cecil Taylor, and Pharoah Sanders. He also led his own ensembles and released several albums as a leader, showcasing his compositions and improvisational skills.

Tintweiss was highly respected within the jazz and avant-garde communities for his innovative approach to music and his dedication to his craft. Despite his passing in 2022, his legacy continues to inspire and influence new generations of musicians and music enthusiasts.

Documented by Steven Tintweiss

MOSTLY WRONG ON SEVERAL COUNTS

Beware of Artificial Intelligence errors.’

I replied:

‘Dear Steve,
So sorry to hear you died two years ago.
Commiserations.
Patrick.’

And Steve came back with:

‘Patrick

Sorry I didn’t get to play with Cecil Taylor and Alan Silva on self-taught guitar, or record with Sunny Murray while I was still alive. Other than being self-taught by Steve Swallow, Gary Peacock, and David Izenson on bass, or studies at Queens College - now the Aaron Copland School, including Jazz Arranging with John Carisi, Classical Music, and performance with the QC Orchestra, and Electronic Music Studio compositions, concerts and broadcasts the rest is true. AI is here. AI is self-taught.

Hello

Steve Tintweiss’

Let’s just hope that Steve does not suffer the fate of Catch 22’s Doc Daneeka!

Youtube roundup

Just three items this month. A 21 minute version of ‘Ghosts’ by the Masabumi Kikuchi Trio from the 2001 album, On The Move.

The Bordeaux footage has been reposted and is well worth another look.

And then there’s this:

Raphael Rogiński

is a guitarist (so this one’s for friend Clive) who mentions Albert Ayler several times in this interview, so I thought I should give him a nod. Also it’s on the Bomb site and so there’s a nice segue (awful word) to the last item from Dirk: