Every Knee Will Bow, Every Tongue Confess

I jammed with a trumpet player a few days ago. While playing, he told me a story. He said that at some point in the 60s, Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman had a jam session at Ornette's home, and that Ornette had recorded it but never released the tapes. The trumpet player told me Ornette still had these tapes (two of them) in his possession and that he (the trumpet player) had heard them late one night a few years ago while hanging out with Ornette. They had been talking about Albert Ayler and Ornette went and pulled out the tapes and said they would be worth a lot of money someday.

The trumpet player listened to their jam session and said he was particularly struck with one of the tunes he had heard. He said it was based on a simple scale of four notes: E-flat, E, A-flat, and B. Ornette said the tune was something Ayler had showed him that day while jamming and that Ayler had named it 'Every Knee Will Bow, Every Tongue Confess.' The trumpet player showed me the scale and how some of the phrasing went on the tape and we jammed on the basic riff for a long time, probably an hour or so, twisting and embellishing the melody, and of course adding in plenty of solos while trying to play as freely as possible.

I liked the little scale the trumpet player showed me and some of the melodies he played so I recorded an improvisation based on it with a drum machine for this video, which is sort of like a Sonny Sharrock tribute.

I am not really sure how true the trumpet player's story is about Ayler and Coleman jamming together, it might be completely false for all I know. I'm not even sure they ever played together. But anyway I hope you like this video. -Jason Earls
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Category:

Music

Tags:

• sonny
• sharrock
• ornette
• coleman
• albert
• ayler
• free
• jazz
• guitar
• riff
• melody
• jason
• earls
• alternative
• rock

[zevi35711]

Jason Earls.

[JackJazzer]

So who is actually playing guitar here ??

[zevi35711]

thanks a lot.

[mrl0p3z]

Sounds great, man.

[zevi35711]

Right, probly an E Major 7th arpeggio since when the notes are layed out on guitar like this (12 14 13 13 x x) it forms an EMaj7 chord.

[bopplayer]

E flat, E, A flat, B is that right? that's just the start of a standard arpeggio.