Albert Ayler - Live in Greenwich Village (1965)

Live in Greenwich Village was Albert Ayler's first recording for Impulse, and is arguably his finest moment, not only for the label, but ever. This double-CD reissue combines both of the Village concerts -- documented only partially on previously released LPs -- recorded in 1965 and 1966 with two very different groups. The Village gigs reveal the mature Ayler whose music embodied bold contradictions: There are the sweet, childlike, singalong melodies contrasted with violent screaming peals of emotion, contrasted with the gospel and R&B shouts of jubilation, all moving into and through one another. On the 1965 date, which featured Ayler, his brother Donald on trumpet, Joel Freedman on cello, bassist Lewis Worrell, and the great Sunny Murray on drums, the sound is one of great urgency. Opening with "Holy Ghost," the Aylers come out stomping and Murray double times them to bring the bass and cello to ground level in order to anchor musical proceedings to their respective generated sounds. "Truth Is Marching In" casts a bleating, gospelized swirl against a backdrop of three- and four-note "sung" phrases that are constantly repeated, à la a carny band before kicking down all the doors and letting it rip for almost 13 minutes. On the 1967 date of the second disc, the Aylers are augmented with drummer Beaver Harris, violinist Michel Sampson, Bill Folwell and Alan Silva on basses, and trombonist George Steele on the closer, "Universal Thoughts." "For John Coltrane" opens the set with a sweltering abstraction of tonalities in the strings and horns. On "Change Has Come," the abstraction remains but the field of language is deeper, denser, more urgent. Only with "Spiritual Rebirth," which opens with a four-note theme, does one get the feeling that the band has been pacing itself for this moment, and that the concert has become an actual treatise on the emotion of "singing" as an ensemble in uncharted territories. Throughout the rest of the set, Ayler's band buoys him perfectly, following him up through every new cloud of unknowing into a sublime musical and emotional beyond which, at least on recordings, would never be realized again. This recording is what all the fuss is about when it comes to Ayler.

By Thom Jurek in All Music Guide

Styles:
Free-Jazz
Avant-Garde

Tracks:
CD1
01 - Holy Ghost (07:41)
02 - Truth Is Marching In (12:42)
03 - Our Prayer (04:45)
04 - Spirits Rejoice (16:22)
05 - Divine Peacemaker (12:37)
06 - Angels (09:53)

CD2
01 - For John Coltrane (13:40)
02 - Change Has Come (06:24)
03 - Light In Darkness (10:59)
04 - Heavenly Home (08:51)
05 - Spiritual Rebirth (04:26)
06 - Infinite Spirit (06:37)
07 - Omega Is The Alpha (10:46)
08 - Univeral Thoughts (08:22)

Line-up:
Albert Ayler - tenor saxophone
Don Ayler - trumpet
Michel Sampson - violin
Bill Folwell - bass
Henry Grimes - bass
Beaver Harris - drums

Marion Brown - Three for Shepp (1966)

Marion Brown's Three for Shepp is the image-in-the-mirror companion to Archie Shepp's Four for Trane recorded the year before. The program is equally divided between Brown's originals, which occupy the first half of the album, and Shepp tunes that take up the latter half. What is immediately striking is how similar in tone, color, and texture the two men were when it came to composition. Brown arms himself here with crack bands for these recordings. Pianist Dave Burrell and drummer Bobby Capp accompany trombonist Grachan Moncur III and Norris Sirone Jones on bass on Brown's own material and Stanley Cowell and Beaver Harris sub in the piano and drum chairs on Shepp's. Brown's "New Blue" is a slow modal study in blues from the post-modal school. In fact, given the airiness and strange intervals played by Brown and Moncur, it is a new kind of modal blues. "Fortunato" is the vanguard take on post-bop swing. It honks, squeaks, and turns itself around to meet knotty changes from Burrell playing in the middle register. Of the Shepp material, "Spooks" is a kind of political statement that swings like mad. Using an early swing rhythm, 8/12, Cowell vamps his ass off on a three-chord figure and the band careens from New Orleans to minstrel-show stomp to blues to bebop, with Moncur playing a solo that could stop a clock. "West India" is a reverential, shimmering blues number, cooled out from edginess or striated distended harmonics. Despite the title, its simple structure uses both West Indian and almost Caribbean rhythms and melody lines -- calypso anyone? -- and then marries them to an African modal structure for the ultimate celebratory effect. "Delicado" is anything but. It's an out, machine-driven post-hard bop number with Cowell and Brown driving the band into a frenzied free for all, fed in amazing time by Harris. This is a classic Impulse! recording of the period by an overlooked master.

By Thom Jurek in All Music

Styles:
Avant-garde

Tracks:
01 - New Blue (05:11)
02 - Fortunado (08:54)
03 - The Shadow Knows (03:04)
04 - Spooks (04:32)
05 - West India (06:24)
06 - Delicado (06:38)

Line-up:
Marion Brown - Alto Saxophone
Grachan Moncur III - Trombone
Sirone - Bass
Dave Burrell - Piano (tracks: 01 to 03)
Stanley Cowell - Piano (tracks: 04 to 06)
Beaver Harris - Drums (tracks: 01 to 03)
Bobby Capp - Drums (tracks: 04 to 06)

Archie Shepp - Mama too Tight (1966)

The octet Archie Shepp surrounded himself with in 1966 was filled with new and old faces. The twin trombones of Roswell Rudd and Grachan Moncur III embodied this, but so did bassist Charlie Haden and trumpeter Tommy Turrentine, while familiar figures like drummer Beaver Harris and tubaist Howard Johnson had been part of Shepp's regular band. There are four tracks on Mama Too Tight, all of them in some way acting as extensions of the opening three-part suite, "A Portrait of Robert Thomson (As a Young Man)." Shepp had hit his stride here compositionally. The track is, at first, a seeming free jazz blowout, but then traces the history of jazz, gospel, and blues through its three sections. Certainly there is plenty of atonality, but there is plenty of harmonic and rhythmic invention too. The piece, almost 19 minutes in length, has an intricate architecture that uses foreshadowing techniques and complex resolution methods. The title track is a post-bop blues swinger with a killer front-line riff turning in and out as the trombones go head to head. And finally, "Basheer," with its Eastern modality that transposes itself toward blues and folk music, becomes a statement on the transitional ties the '60s were ushering in musically. Here again, lots of free blowing, angry bursts of energy, and shouts of pure revelry are balanced with Ellingtonian elegance and restraint that was considerable enough to let the lyric line float through and encourage more improvisation. This is Shepp at his level best.

by Thom Jurek in All Music Guide

Styles:
Avant-Garde
Free Jazz

Tracks:
01 - A Portrait Of Robert Thompson: A. Prelude to a Kiss / B. The Break Strain-King Cotton / C. Dem Basses (18:57)
02 - Mama Too Tight (5:25)
03 - Theme for Ernie (3:21)
04 - Basheer (10:38)

Line-up:
Archie Shepp: tenor saxophone
Tommy Turrentine: trumpet
Grachan Moncur III: trombone
Roswell Rudd: trombone
Howard Johnson: tuba
Perry Robinson: clarinet
Charlie Haden: bass
Beaver Harris: drums