Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Albert Ayler was born on July 13, 1936 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and was first taught alto saxophone by his father Edward, who was a semiprofessional saxophonist and violinist. They played alto saxophone duets in church and often listened to jazz records together, including swing era jazz and then-new bop albums. He attended John Adams High School adding oboe to his instruments, followed after graduation with studies at the Academy of Music with jazz saxophonist Benny Miller. It was during his teenage years that he picked up the nickname “Little Bird” because of his understanding of bebop style and mastery of standard repertoire.

In 1952, at the age of 16, Ayler began playing bar-walking, honking, R&B style tenor with blues singer and harmonica player Little Walter, spending two summer vacations with the band. By 1958 he was in the Army, switched from alto to tenor sax, playing in the regiment band and jamming with other enlisted musicians, including tenor Stanley Turrentine. Stationed in France a year later, he was further exposed to the martial music that would be a core influence on his later work. After his discharge from the army, Ayler tried to find work in Los Angeles and Cleveland, but his increasingly iconoclastic playing, which had moved away from traditional harmony, was not welcomed by traditionalists.

In 1962 Albert relocated to Sweden, where his recording career began, leading Swedish and Danish groups on radio sessions, and jamming as an unpaid member of Cecil Taylor’s band. It was here in Copenhagen that he recorded My Name Is Albert Ayler with Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen and Ronnie Gardiner. 1963 saw his return to settle in New York City, develop his personal style, record his debut as a leader titled Witches and Devils and begin a relationship with ESP-Disk Records in 1964, recording his breakthrough album Spiritual Unity with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray, which was also the label’s first jazz album. His trio would go on to record with Don Cherry, John Tchicai and Roswell Rudd on the soundtrack to New York Eye and Ear Control, which was followed by a tour with his trio plus Cherry producing the albums The Copenhagen Tapes, Vibrations, and The Hilversum Session.

In 1966 Ayler signed with Impulse Records at the urging of Coltrane but his radically different music never found a sizable audience. However his first set titled Albert Ayler in Greenwich Village with his brother Donald, Michael Samson, Beaver Harris, Henry Grimes and Bill Folwell too Ayler back to the alto on his tribute tune “For John Coltrane”. He first sang on a recording in a version of “Ghosts” performed in Paris in 1966. He would go on to record three albums of lyrics and vocals of his girlfriend Mary Maria Parks and introduce regular chord changes, funky beats and electronic instruments.

Avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer Albert Ayler disappeared on November 5, 1970, and he was found dead in New York City’s East River on November 25,1970, a presumed suicide. In tribute, Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin was so inspired by hiss music and life that he produced a documentary by the name of My Name is Albert Ayler, which includes interviews with ESP-Disk founder Bernard Stollman, along with interviews with his family and band mates.

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