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(From Melody Maker January 31st, 1981) - UK Life being short and the vinyl flow unstemmable, I don't suppose I had listened to Albert's music for a year.
One shot of this previously unreleased material sent me burrowing back into the Ayler oeuvre in wild excitement. Could there be anything as good as this? Possibly Spirits, possibly Ghosts, possibly Spiritual Unity; quite possibly, this is the best of them all.
Nineteen sixty four was Ayler's summit. Later armatures housed some aspects of his vision at the expense of other, rarer forces. His field of fire may have been narrower, but it was certainly deeper, and—17 years after the event—it still shakes the heart like a shock. Plenty of familiar Ayler themes here, all sounding like a Wessex pub gathering standing in for Fate in a Hardy novel.
"Angels" opens to an unbearably tragic, ragged, juddering unison of horns over standing bass strokes and snare rushes. There is little accuracy in any of Ayler's theme statements, which wander off pitch, backfire and howl; detail seems not to interest him, here or during his solos. He has broad, dramatic shape in mind, and will gabble repetitively, albeit with great projection and momentum, until he has blocked in what is necessary as a counterpoise to his grand moments.
He delights in the tumble of pell-mell, the high held yell over hugely pulled bass strokes, the heavy bounce between the extremes of register, the demise of a truculent note into a pleading, the movement of a motif out of focus, either by the use of a flattening speed, an unusual pitch or a grotesque busker's vibrato. An obstacle course—and then some—it is a measure of his spirit that the melodic material not only avoids parody, but actually gains nobility.
"Spirits", Cherry seemingly opening on a different tune and overruled, has Ayler's finest solo, one of those unstoppable "Ghosts, Second Variation" exorcisms, daftly interrupted by the cornettist, and continuing to climb, honk in the bass register, and combine the two extremes in a split-note advance.
Everywhere else, Cherry is marvellous. On "Ghosts" he sounds as if he were taking the thematic material through a series of run-ups without caring for a leap, while on "Spirits" his solo is as vestal and hysterical as a witchhunt.
Some of the most extraordinary music ever devised, and indispensible. BRIAN CASE *** (From New Musical Express (?) 1981) - UK THE RELEASE of hitherto undocumented work by ‘60s giants underlines how much recent jazz still owes to their pioneering and what a vast wellspring of resources it was. Albert Ayler’s ‘The Hilversum Session’ (Osmosis - Dutch import), a radio date from 1964, retains a blistering impact that makes the time lag meaningless.
It’s the classic Ayler Quartet - the leader on tenor, Don Cherry’s skywriting trumpet as superb foil, Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray in the engine room - working a programme of the saxophonist’s familiar themes. Ayler’s sound is an awesome amalgam of screaming lunges into the extremes of register, exaggerated vibrato lending an edge of cutting poignancy. His compositions are basic as earth, a folkish simplicity imbuing the framework for his incantatory drive.
To pick just two, ‘Ghosts’ and ‘Angels’, are at once frightening and moving, towering statements torn to tragic tatters. A set like this makes a nonsense of this music being ‘difficult’. Ayler demands involvement, almost as if he were dangling his heart before you. Albert forged a crucible of emotion which too many copycats have mistaken for vacuous raging. Hear the original, and marvel. RICHARD COOK Back to: Record Reviews Discography: The Hilversum Session |
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