Albert Ayler: In Greenwich Village 12"

Albert Ayler: In Greenwich Village 12"


Tags: · 60s · free jazz · jazz · reissues · spo-default · spo-disabled
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"The first two Ayler interactions in this album, For Coltrane and Change Has Come, were recorded during a concert at the Village Theatre on New York's Lower East Side on February 26, 1967...I can't imagine 'For Coltrane' presenting any problems of comprehension for any listener. Ayler is a strong, intense melodist - an element in his work that usually is in clear evidence primarily at the beginning of an improvisation, before the deeply secure, affirming melody courses through Ayler's own playing and that of Joel Friedman on cello.

 

Adding dimensions of textures and emotions are the two bassists, with Alan Silva particularly brilliant in his explorations of the upper range of the instrument...

 

"Change Has Come' implies, says Ayler, that "in my mysic, I'm trying to look far ahead. Like Coltrane, I'm playing about the beauty that is to come after all the tensions and anxieties. This is about post-war cries; I mean the cries of love that are already in the young and that will emerge as people seeking freedom come to spiritual freedom."

 

"Truth Is Marching In and Our Prayer were recorded at the Village Vanguard on December 18, 1966, with John Coltrane in attendance...Echoes of New Orleans marching bands set the rejoicing mood at the start of Truth Is Marching In as Albert Ayler again demonstrates his penchant for boldly dramatic opening lines...Ayler explains that [Our Prayer] is, "a prayer to the Creator, a song about the spiritual principles of the universe."

 

"...I would only add that Albert Ayler's music projects such overwhelming vitality - or spiritual energy, as he would all it - that it cannot help but triumph. It may not change all its listeners in the way Ayler intendes, but it will surely open up more and more people to new ways of listening and, therefore, to new ways of feeling." - original liner notes, Nat Hentoff