Albert Ayler: The Last Album

[ep1str0phy]

Somewhere I got the impression that Ayler's final Impulse recordings were undergoing some manner of reevaluation, but this album (having not been reissued, let alone mentioned, too often) seems to have gotten swept under the rug.

Ayler's other Impulse studio albums are by most measures a mixed bag. I think that Love Cry is substantial but too brief--uncomfortably compressed. New Grass is, for me, conceptually questionable but actually stunningly executed in parts; it wears thin on repeated listens, but Ayler's own playing and singing are blisteringly direct, seemingly attempting to all at once engage with the R&B idiom, distort it, and compensate (overcompensate) for the environs' structural inflexibility. The third of the four, Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe, is for me--without question--the weakest of all of Ayler's recordings, owing simply to the dominance of the vocals an the absence of much improvising room. I have no qualms with Mary Maria and I think she's actually an effective, slightly more "tutored" foil for Ayler's weird excursions, but Healing Force suffers from its own idiom and never accumulates enough momentum to be engaging for too long.

Not so with The Last Album. First, I disagree with most accounts of these final sessions suggesting that somehow Ayler was working with a "lesser band". Granted, neither Bill Folwell nor Stafford James come within spitting distance of Gary Peacock, but Muhammad Ali and Bobby Few (proven beyond doubt as members of the Center of the World quartet, Few also as Steve Lacy's latter-day pianist) are as effective--in theory--a rhythm team as Ayler ever worked with.

The good--everything here--everything--works better than on Healing Force. The vocal pieces, particularly Again Comes the Rising of the Sun, are exigent and actually pretty powerful; the band gets some room to move and, on the aforementioned track, Ayler ascends to some pretty daring heights. That applies to everything here--this is detailed, involved music, and musical nuance is what is (arguably) lacking in the companion album. In addition to the vocal pieces, there are a few quartet tracks that are remarkably unencumbered for Ayler's studio sessions at this juncture, characterized by a sense of urgency and depth (not to mentioned musicality) that recalls, to me, Coltrane's final group. Also, noting that "Drudgery" is the best thing about Healing Force, the guitar/blues features here are awesome; "Untitled Duet"--Ayler's strange-ass bagpipe feature--gets into some pretty prescient/pre-noise sort of spaces. Vestine on these sides conveys a spark of creativity, strength, and penchant for technical extension on his instrument that approaches early Sonny Sharrock.

I run hot and cold, however, on the improvisational approach of these ensembles. Few and Ali, when allowed (?) to break through, approach the complexity but not the energy of their playing with Frank Wright; the overall effect is somewhere in-between the sound of the Center of the World quartet and Coltrane's final ensemble--rhythmically dispersed, lacking linear (but not lateral) momentum, pantonal (versus atonal), and dense. What I love about, for example, the Spiritual Unity trio is the sparseness of the ensembles; the communication is in that context was extremely lucid--not so much here. Additionally, the actual notated material on these recordings is kind of weak. It's hard to actually "hear" the themes (almost indistinguishable from the improv), which says a lot, considering this is Ayler we're talking about.

Moreover, there's a sort of dourness on The Last Album that keeps Ayler's own playing really grounded. So much of the album is in this minor-gendered, modal vein that it's hard to see Ayler as much as simulacratized late Coltrane some of the time. That being said, when in the mood for this particular flavor of majestic, if morose, free music, this stuff is actually pretty good.

I can't be the only one who thinks this.

Edited September 11, 2009 by ep1str0phy

[jeffcrom]

Great post.

When I was younger, I thought of New Grass, Healing Force, and Last Album as being cut from the same cloth, but that was just ignorance. New Grass is a highly compromised offering, but the last two albums seem to actually represent Ayler's (and Mary Maria's) vision at the time. Ep1str0phy went into detail, so I'll just say that I like about half of the music from these records. "Water Music" in particular is a beautiful thing. And I don't mind Mary Maria's singing so much as her lyrics, which at times painfully trite and inane.

Basically, no Ayler fan should discount the albums from the final sessions, even if nothing here will make you forget Spiritual Unity or "For John Coltrane."

[JohnS]

It's not bad, but I didn't find it to be essential so I disposed of my copy recently. I have more than enough Ayler and I'm always looking to reduce the size of my vinyl collextion.

New Grass I've always enjoyed in some peculiar way, great in parts.

[jazzbo]

I need to dig this out and listen to it again soon. I do like it. I like all Ayler and they all seem to progress with a pattern and seem to fit in with his life and the path he was following.

I'd love to have an Impulse cd.

[ep1str0phy]

I actually only have a Japanese import CD, run across cheap and by luck. I don't know if Impulse would ever reissue it, but then they're on their whole digipack campaign and some interesting stuff has slipped through the cracks. I think that, at this point, this album and Sam Rivers' Streams are the best Impulse recordings that are virtually MIA at this point (I'd include Dewey Redman's Coincide, but a lot of those tracks popped up on the still-sort-of-available/easy-to-find Ear of the Behearer reissue).

[B. Clugston]

Music is the Healing Force of the Universe and Last Album are no New Grass.

I prefer Music is the Healing Force of the Universe over Last Album (I dig the intensity of the title track and “Masonic Inborn”), but I wish whichever conglomerate is holding on to tapes these days would release the complete session in one package. Mary Maria’s hippy dippy act wears thin by the time I get to Last Album (particularly “Again Comes The Risting Of The Sun”), but that album still has something to offer. Both albums point the way forward to the Fondation Maeght records are were clearly part of a progression, whereas New Grass was a sideshow.

New Grass is awful. Listen to the much-better demos on Holy Ghost to see how this thing should have sounded, until the label got overly-involved. Poor Bill Folwell: his bass is funky in the demos, but someone turned him into a robot for the official release. Don’t even get me started on the Bert DeCoteaux factor. I find the New Grass demos are among the highlights of Holy Ghost.

Love Cry is interesting, but odd. In the first half, Ayler dashes off a trio of old favourites in an almost radio-friendly manner, but does so with his most radical rhythm section ever (Alan Silva, Milford Graves).

[paul secor]

Heard Albert Ayler in concert shortly before Love Cry was released, and he was playing some of those tunes as part of a medley flowing into one another, not as separate tunes like they appear on the record.

I bought Healing Force and Last Album when they were issued. Listened to them a couple of times and got rid of them. Have no desire to revisit them.

[AndrewHill]

Never heard the Last Album, but the other two in question from this period, New Grass and Healing Force, Healing Force, IMO is a far better, and more cohesive work. I actually dig Ayler's bagpipe chantor (or whatever its called) in a free jazz context and the double basses add a richer context to the music. Now having said that, the first three tracks are really good and recall the more experimental period up to about 1967, then the next two tracks are more of a throwback to New Grass. Drudgery, the final track, is somewhere in between, a peculier track at best. New Grass, on the other hand, which is an album that has its moments, just never really warmed up to me. I think I understand that Ayler had a "new message" but I guess I just don't like the context, which that message was given in. Oh well.

I prefer from his Impulse! period, The Complete Greenwich Village and Love Cry instead.

[jeffcrom]

Heard Albert Ayler in concert....

I am now officially jealous to the point of hatred.

[AllenLowe]

so am I; it occurs to me that Roswell Rudd is one of the last people around who played with Ayler, and I've known Roswell for about 15 years, and it's never occurred to me to ask him about Ayler -

time to fix that -

[Alexander Hawkins]

Acutally, my initial reaction was like yours - not too many guys left who played with Ayler. But thinking about it, the list isn't too short: just off the top of my head, guys like Murray, Graves, Grimes, Peacock, Few, Tchicai...for sure though, would be v interesting to hear their reminiscences!

[AllenLowe]

somebody should do an oral history of Albert - because in 5-10 years that list is going to shrink, I am sorry to say.

[JSngry]

Paul Bley & Cecil Taylor. Charles Tyler.

[paul secor]

Paul Bley & Cecil Taylor. Charles Tyler.

Paul Bley & Cecil - yeah. Charles Tyler passed on in 1992.

[JSngry]

Well, that's no reason not to talk to him...

[paul secor]

Actually, I believe that there was an interview with Charles Tyler in Cadence that could be useful for an oral history of Albert Ayler.

[ep1str0phy]

RE: New Grass--many of the fans of this album that I have encountered have come out of rock and have divorced the album from its origins. I recall Pete Brown gave it a shout out w/regard to the first Battered Ornaments album. William Winant, who actaully played with Bill Folwell in the latter's later years, really loves the album--though that's someone who operates in all circles.

I enjoy it because of the surrealism of the whole thing... if this were some artifact from the 70's with some faceless saxophonist at its center, New Grass would be up there with Funky Skull and whatnot as a bonafide, non-ambiguous cult classic (and no one gets on the AACM's case for cutting stuff like that... is it because Ayler's MO was so specific?). Ayler's playing on the album is maybe more inspired than on any of his last four studio albums--and it might be because he was just engaged with the project. I honestly believe that it was Ayler's idea to do that music--I also believe that he was likely in a state of severe mental confusion at that time.

I'm not alone in apprehending that the trajectory of Ayler's recorded career traces a decreasing degree of formal freedom, even as the nature of his overall compositions peaked in complexity with his post-Bells marching band aesthetic. And of course many have noted how weird it is that his final live recordings were so different from the studio work (I for one think it's interesting how the Nuits sides are so much less formally strict--I might even say less coherent--than Ayler's marching band music, but this is likely a function of the band he was with at the time).

RE: Charles Tyler... Lewis Jordan, a Bay Area player, told me that his first live gig was with Charles Tyler--he said it felt like the closest he was ever going to get to working with Ayler. Thinking about this, I revisted Spirits Rejoice and Bells and--of all of Ayler's sax contemporaries--Tyler probably "got" Ayler's concept better than anyone else, IMO.

[Chuck Nessa]

And Charles called him Al.

[clifford_thornton]

I really wish I'd gotten to talk to Charles Tyler before he died. That's what I get for being a young'un.

[Chuck Nessa]

You have a larger burden than that!

[JSngry]

And Charles called him Al.

So that's what that Paul Simon song is about! Who knew?

[John L]

I like all of Ayler's last Impulse! albums. They are all inconsistent, but also contain jewels. What I like most about them is they allow us to hear Ayler in different and fresh musical contexts. The band with Don Ayler, Michel Sampson et al made some fine music, but it was getting a bit tired (IMO). I certainly wouldn't trade the Impulse! albums for four more good records from that band.

[ep1str0phy]

I have been listening pretty intensely to Love Cry the past few days, and I think I "get" it a little more. Essentially an album of thematic statements, the quartet/quintet format casts this component of Ayler's ethos in really stark, beautiful light... it's probably the "prettiest" album Ayler ever made, the earlier, similarly quaint (but somewhat more grotesque) Goin' Home included.

Two things-

(1) The jewel case Impulse reissue probably made this a substantially better album. Re-expanding the last few tracks and including missing/alternate takes expands one's perspective on this particular quartet configuration and, balancing with more "classic," Spiritual Unity-era idiomatic playing the terseness of the short tracks, magnifying the beauty of the album's concision.

(2) Milford Graves kicked ass in Ayler's band--probably the ideal foil for Ayler's "free spiritual music" concept, a real shame he didn't stay in the group for long. The flexibility, detail, and dynamism of Graves's sound stands in stark contrast to Ronald Shannon Jackson's more blustery approach and Beaver Harris's static, martial sound fields. Graves (actually, Graves + Silva, although the latter doesn't really cut all by his lonesome on the great-in-their-own way Greenwich Village recordings) is the motile element on Love Cry and (arguably) the decisive factor on the Newport recordings found on Holy Ghost--an ecstatic, truly propulsive sound that just lifts Ayler's cry to the next level.

I'm now led to think that Graves was the Ayler drummer in the post-Bells period. I love Jackson and Harris, for what it's worth, but Graves's is just a whole different animal. There's something creepily atheistic about Sunny Murray that suits Ayler's earlier, darker, more confrontational sound, but I just can't hear the "rejoicing" in his playing--and Graves is all about "rejoicing"... with Ayler, on Black Woman, Babi Music, Nommo, whatever. If only they could have worked more together... Ayler's healing force + Graves's nascent theraputic musicality.

[jostber]

What Ayler album is this?

It certainly got the coolest cover!

[clifford_thornton]

French 45 PS from the New Grass sessions, IIRC.

Milford said he and Ayler played duos a fair amount. None were recorded to my knowledge.