DamoXt7942 A magnificent heated session in New York by six jazz giants.

This was the first free jazz album I've purchased, and my enthusiasm for this album upon my first listening in a whisky bar (thanks to Shinichi for your fantastic suggestion) made myself grab the brilliant session album out. Avantgarde free jazz with enjoying great whisky ... but their impression was too strong and too splendid for me to remember the taste of whisky actually. What a passion around the sextet ... the brass section featuring John TCHICAI (alto saxophone), Don CHERRY (trumpet), Roswell RUDD (trombone), and Albert AYLER (tenor saxophone) is battling, chasing with each other. Along with incredible sound power created by every brass instrument, upon bombastic soundgarden brilliant sparks are thrown off here and there. And yes, their massive identities should be strictly supported by the two synchronizers - aka the rhythm section Gary PEACOCK (bass) and Sonny MURRAY (drums) ... their rhythm basis is improvised and at the same time intriguing and impressive. It's no strange if any of them go ahead or strike directly. Every giant is exactly a giant, without any suspicion.

Listening to this album has notified me that I sincerely love avantgarde jazz or avantgarde rock.

js Reevaluations: The Impulse Years” is of course a collection of Albert Ayler’s work on the Impulse label, the label he was on for the last part of his life before his untimely death. Many devoted fans of Ayler and avant-garde “purists” often denounce his work on Impulse for straying too far from the classic free jazz he helped invent in the early 60s. Certainly this collection of tracks makes for a bizarre and eclectic mix, and actually there is no shortage of free range blowing on here, its just that on his Impulse albums he started to introduce elements into his music that proved a little much for his earlier fans. One of the biggest complaints with Ayler’s Impulse work involves his use of vocalists. Certainly avant-garde jazz vocals can be an acquired taste and a hard sell, but you can’t be surprised that Ayler’s restless spirit would want to try new things. The vocals on here range form theatric declarations (“Again Comes the Rising of the Sun”), stately atonal melodies in semi-operatic style, free jazz vocalizing and some echoed chant at the beginning of “New Ghosts” that had me thinking early Funkadelic or Pink Floyd.

Other complaints about Ayler’s Impulse work includes use of unorthodox instruments such as the electric harpsichord and the introduction of RnB into his music. Ayler’s attempts at RnB have been called commercial sell-outs, but there is absolutely nothing commercial about Alyer’s expressive gritty take on this music. First of all, Ayler’s late 60s RnB recordings sound nothing like the sophisticated soul music of the time, but instead hark back to an older era of gut bucket blues and New Orleans drum line shuffles. Ayler’s playing on these cuts is bold and uncompromising as he recreates the raw sound of a bygone era in rowdy club music. Although purists of either genre might not appreciate this mix of avant-garde and down home barroom rowdiness, in reality, once its late at night and the musicians are sauced and the crowd is feisty, this is often the sort of noise you hear coming from dives and juke joints all around the world. Ayler’s rough take on RnB can also be seen as an important predecessor to the “free-funk” scene that would come later from Ornette Coleman and Blood Ulmer.

There is an interesting variety to this album, along with the vocal numbers and rough hewn RnB you also get some classic Ayler free sessions performing in interesting ensembles such as “For John Coltrane” which pairs Albert with three string players in a thoughtfully restrained live performance. The big plus throughout this collection is of course the big bold sound of Ayler’s tenor saxophone. Albert never compromised and remains one of the most original and innovative voices in jazz ever.

snobb On the wave of archival releases fashion, Albert Ayler's legacy needed to be explored deeper, so it's strange that such a release didn't come earlier. During the last decade among a few similar releases, possibly only "The Copenhagen Tapes" (Ayler Records,2002) could be mentioned as a successful archival Ayler album. "Stockholm, Berlin 1966" is quite a strange release, (though not so unusual for Swiss Hatology catalog to be honest)- I can hardly imagine who is this release's targeted consumer. It contains two recorded concerts from Ayler's European tour 1966, both of the concerts mostly feature the same tunes. Nothing is wrong with such a concept if the listener can hear two extremely different concerts of very unpredictable music, but here is not the case unfortunately. Ayler's early radical period was gone, and the band (same line-up as you can expect - the time difference between the two concerts of the same tour was only a week) consists of Albert's brother Donald on trumpet, plus a trio of good collaborators, but not stars as was more usual in Ayler's early years. The musical program is based on some strong (possibly Ayler's strongest) marching themes played with passion, but too repetitive to be repeated twice on the same release. For sure there were no two same Ayler's concerts, but the difference in these two dates' versions is not so big - and what is more important, there are a lot of different versions of these same songs already released before. The sound quality is average, but again you can find better sound recordings of this same material. So it's difficult to imagine what could be the reason for Ayler's fans to open their valet to pay for this album. Also, for newcomers this album is by far not the best buy - besides being not very accessible, it offers the questionable opportunity to listen to the same songs twice. Collectors may need it, but just note - Berlin concert (right half of the album) was already released in 2004 by Revenant Records on their Holy Ghost set.