Word: ayler
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...itself. One thinks of avantgarde jazz in terms of raw rhythmic energy and screeching atonalism, but the Art Ensemble's musical vocabulary evokes swing, calypso, bebop circus music, rhythm'n blues and a host of other influences side-by-side with the visionary innovations of a Coltrane or an Ayler. It's not simply a case of an eclectic repertoire; these diverse styles emerge organically from the Art Ensemble's musical conception and are knit into a fabric that clearly belongs to the AEC alone...
...both the successes and failures of the music that has been labelled avant-garde jazz. The four featured musicians represent a fair selection of the music's most important figures. Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone) and Cecil Taylor (piano) were among the first of avant-garde's proponents. Albert Ayler (tenor sax) was an influential force in the music throughout the '60s and Marion Brown (tenor sax) is a late-blossomer. The records display the new expressive powers that the music's structural freedom allows: they also show the chaos that can result when inspiration falters and there is no strucural...
...Albert Ayler founds his approach to jazz on a search for simplicity. His music reaches back into the origins of jazz for its most basic, primal elements. He rejects the modern sophistication of chordal structures to construct a new blues form. Ayler digs deep into the tenor saxophone's gutteral voice to produce a sound that is harsh, unsubtle and unpolished. He plays in a strong, brutal manner; he bends, bashes and torments notes until they express what he desires. Usually building around a simple recognizable theme, Ayler relies on a rawness of emotion unfiltered through traditional structure that seems...
...Vibrations Ayler is backed up by a group remarkably sympathetic to his inclinations. All have strong connections with the avant-garde movement: Sonny Murray (drums) had worked extensively with Cecil Taylor, don Cherry (trumpet) with Ornette Coleman and Gary Peacock (bass) with Paul Bley. Each listens to the others to produce an intricately balanced counterpoint. On 'Mothers,' Cherry soars off in clear tones against the gruff, grinding bass of Peacock. When Ayler enters with huge, broad sweeps of melody line, Cherry switches to a jabbing attack of quick phrases...
...themselves at a later juncture. The music's complexity is stunning; like an intricate web seen from afar, his music seems initially amorphous, but upon closer examination each musical strand and the pattern into which it is woven appears. In many ways Taylor's style is the antithesis of Ayler's in that Taylor is using the new musical freedom to construct a more sophisticated form, rather than a simpler...