The track of Ayler performing with Cecil Taylor's trio in 1962 is, as Mats Gustafsson calls it, the "missing link" in the Ayler discography, the key which opened the door to Ayler's revolutionary "Spiritual Unity" trio. As Marc Chaloin notes in his essay, Ayler had not "thoroughly integrated the pianist's universe" (as had Jimmy Lyons) but rather "appears like a precious fellow-traveler to Taylor -- who in turn provided him at a crucial juncture with just the congenial musical environment he needed to fully come into his own." (An interesting parallel is the 1958 recording of John Coltrane with Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot -- also poorly recorded -- in which we can hear Trane develop certain aspects of his music heard in full bloom in the "Kind of Blue" and "Giant Steps" recordings of 1959. But the Ayler-Cecil meeting led to a much more radical restructuring, centered around Sunny Murray's expansive rhythms.)
A couple of weeks ago, as I was starting to dig into the Ayler box, I caught a screening of Michael Snow's film "New York Ear and Eye Control," which has a soundtrack by an expanded version of Ayler's group. I had seen the film once before, years ago, but forgot about the sequence of musicians posed before the camera, including Ayler in shadows, his luminous eyes cutting through the image to give the sense of an inner light shining through. (This footage is included on the "Digital Snow" DVD-ROM.)
This is "angry" music? The man wore a green leather suit!!
Here's that chance."I'm going to give the American people another chance."
-- Albert Ayler, 1970
Ho, ho, ho.
