Summertime - Albert Ayler

From "My Name is Albert Ayler." One of the greatest Ayler performances, the one you can imagine Coltrane listening to in 1965 and saying "this guy is profoundly ahead of me."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• ayler
• jazz
• free
• saxophone

[ExMachine]

Hmm Jazz people must be screwed down pretty tight 'cos this all sounds fine and good to me. Maybe he's breaking rules i'm not aware of.

It doesn't sound wacky, it just sounds like a guy is playing like his life depended on it- and why would you want to listen to anything else?! I confess i find a lot of more 'normal' jazz dull and formulaic. This is exciting!

[opinioninflicting]

@ExMachine (Coltrane's drummer) Elvin Jones said: "You just have to play like you're dying with the motherfucker."

[obsidiansands1]

The traditional backing gets a lot of flack from avant garde fans, but actually I think it is even more intriguing to hear Albert in this setting as a contrast to the unfettered freedom that came later...

[opinioninflicting]

No, Ayler was maybe at his best right from the beginning. The crazy metabolism of free jazz rhythm isn't always necessary. Ayler was half-insane, at least, he killed himself, and the early shit is probably the best. Nothing wrong with conventional, rhythmic backing. If you've ever tried to turn friends on to this music, it can be a deal-breaker, too. There are some free-jazz performances that really benefit from rhythmic insanity, I'd argue, but not many, and not many people really understand it

[MADFACTdub]

I'm Respect Jazz Vible

[troykivey]

It's certainly not the chaos people expect from Free Jazz, but it is NOT at all a "traditional" jazz composition..

[Easleytee]

Ayler is criminally ignored. His intonation and expressivity undeniably ascend from the depths of some Faustian nightmare.

Dissonance never sounded so poignant and soulful.

[MrHova50]

Örsted Pedersen, the late phenomenal Danish bassist, was only 16 years old at this moment (January 1963)...

Hova

[aarfeld]

As radical as it sounds, in many ways the players of the "New Thing" were also traditionalists reviving very early Jazz concepts like vocalizing through the horn, making sound effects and animal noises. These were techniques used on the earliest Jazz recordings by the early masters out of New Orleans. Call and response was revived very strongly by the avante garde as well.

[Orchidoclastie]

What a crying out grillot! Magnifique!

[phantom5691]

@ExMachine this is amazing...it kills me every time i hear it.

it is primal screaming of an unparalleled beauty

[ogdTo]

Thank you Albert

[bazza5010]

A soul laid absolutely bare and (dare I say it?) vulnerable! Listening to this is almost voyeristic!