Ayler Cherrie

Marc Ribot - Spiritual Unity (2005) {Pi Recordings PI15}
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© 2005 Pi Recordings | PI15
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Structured Improvisation / Guitar

Guitarist Marc Ribot, formerly of the Lounge Lizards and sometime partner of Marianne Faithfull, Tom Waits and John Zorn, has been involved in his share of unusual projects, but this one might be the most unexpected: a tribute to the late saxophonist Albert Ayler's music of the 1960s. The band catches the group's rough-hewn, trancelike sound with uncanny accuracy, with Ayler's bassist, Henry Grimes, back in action for the project at age 70. But this is no sentimental tourist trip: it's an attempt to reignite the transported atmosphere that the old band discovered through a mix of simple materials, church- and street-music, blues and selfless free-fall interplay.

It is a well rehearsed story that some of the major innovators of modern jazz were, in the early 1960s, struggling to get recording contracts or gigs in America. This led players like Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor to try their hand across the Atlantic. These players found a particularly warm reception in Scandinavia, and live recordings from any of these in Sweden or Denmark are well worth looking out for. This nicely packaged reissue captures Taylor’s performances at Copenhagen’s Café Montmartre, with three bonus tracks recorded at Stockholm’s Golden Circle. For fans of Taylor, the material (with the exception of the bonus tracks which have not been previously released) will be familiar from the Live! At the Café Montmartre and Nefertiti: the beautiful one has come. This set comes with a booklet with the sleeve notes from these previous releases, featuring Erik Weidermann’s insightful comments on the performances and the developments of Taylor’s playing.

Frank Wright - The Complete ESP-Disk' Recordings (1965) {2CD Set, ESP 4007 rel 2005}
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© 1965-67, 2005 ESP-Disk' | ESP 4007
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Tenor Saxophone

Frank Wright, childhood friend of the Ayler brothers, started out (musically speaking) as an R&B bassist, but was convinced by Albert Ayler to switch to tenor sax. He came to be the epitome of the free jazz tenorman, a hard blower whose intensity and "preaching" style earned him the nickname "The Reverend" and the undying respect of the style's connoisseurs. Given the Ayler connection, it's not surprising that he started his recording career as a leader on ESP-Disk' with the two albums compiled here in their entirety, 1965's Frank Wright Trio and 1967's Your Prayer (and, for the first time in this 2005 edition, supplemented by context-providing interview material). Note that the title would more accurately be The Complete Studio ESP Recordings; the 1974 concert recording Unity, issued by ESP in 2006, is not included here. The unrelenting fervor of Wright's playing on these LPs are a wonder of nature.

This 4-CD set marks the 45th anniversary of Impulse Records. John Coltrane was the first major artist to sign with ABC-Paramount's fledgling subsidiary in 1961 and it was an inspired choice, his rising prominence and adventurous spirit immediately identifying Impulse with a dynamic shift in jazz. With its gatefold album covers and black and orange graphics, Impulse also added some visual panache to the revolution. While Coltrane–represented here by tracks such as "Greensleeves," "Impressions" and a segment from his signature A Love Supreme–was clearly the label's inspiration, Bob Thiele was one of the great jazz record producers, bent on documenting the best veteran musicians as well as the avant-garde. You hear it in superb tracks here from Earl Hines, Count Basie and Coleman Hawkins, as well as stellar performances by major figures of modern jazz like Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus. There are also plenty of appearances by Coltrane’s associates, like McCoy Tyner and Alice Coltrane, as well as the revolutionaries that Coltrane and Thiele nurtured, among them Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders. It all contributes to a survey of what was most vital in jazz in the 1960s and early '70s that no other single label could manage