Some mp3s

(A few mp3s of Ayler tracks to give the complete neophyte some idea of what this site is all about. Plus a handy list of odd other mp3s scattered round the site.)

Sheet Music

(Lead sheets for several Ayler compositions transcribed by Jeff Schwartz. Plus an arrangement of ‘Truth is Marching In’ by Dikko Faust.)

Ayler Upbeat Windups

(Dikko Faust’s transcriptions of Ayler’s ‘upbeat windups’.)

Albert Ayler and the Inconsistency of Tune Titles

(Discographies are one thing - here Dikko Faust and Sean Wilkie explain what Ayler is really playing.)

Versions

(A list of recordings of Ayler tunes by other musicians.)

Tributes

(A list of recordings dedicated to Ayler. Plus various other tributes - bands, events, etc.)

Appreciations of Ayler

(A section where you can add your own thoughts, theories and ideas about the music of Albert and Don Ayler.)

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Finally, I thought the following item about Albert Ayler’s most famous composition should be included here.

The Origin of ‘Ghosts’

From Dan Warburton’s sleevenotes to The Copenhagen Tapes:

“Ayler Records’ Jan Strom claims that ‘Ghosts’ originates in a song called ‘Torparvisan’ (‘Little Farmer’s Song’) which was a hit on Swedish radio in 1961, and the late Bengt Frippe Nordstrom, who recorded Albert at the time, confirmed that Albert performed the song while touring the country with local musicians. A close listening to the 78 rpm recording as sung by Gunde Johansson reveals little melodic similarity between the folk material and any extant Ayler composition to my knowledge, though the harmonic correspondences are clear enough. Then again, it could be argued that, in Scandinavian folk music, Ayler rediscovered the universal tonic-subdominant-dominant cornerstones of Western music, the basic building blocks of the gospel and blues tradition he grew up with.”

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