Albert Ayler Live In Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings CD

Call Cobbs (piano); Bill Fowell, Henry Grimes, Alan Silva, Lewis Worrell (bass); Beaver Harris, Sunny Murray (drums).

Recorded live at The Village Gate, New York, New York, March 28, 1965; The Village Vanguard, New York, New York, December, 18, 1966; The Village Theatre, New York, New York, Feburary 26, 1967. Originally released as ALBERT AYLER IN GREENWICH VILLAGE on Impulse (9155) and ALBERT AYLER: THE VILLAGE CONCERTS on Impulse (9336). Includes original liner notes by Nat Hentoff and Robert Palmer.

Digitally remastered by Erick Labson using 20-bit technology at MCA Studios.

This set documents some of the most robust and influential fermentation that was taking place in '60s jazz around the Village in New York City. Recorded live in 1966 and 1967, LIVE is transcendental church music, grounded in conventional African-American spirituality as it reaches exultantly for the sky. Traditional melody-then-solos structure splits at the seams as tunes spill into collective improvisation. The band often suggests a gaggle of patriots crying out in personal jubilation but rallying together, again and again, to sing a cherished anthem anew.

Ayler and Don Cherry maintain a constant tension between simple melodicism and rapturous free blowing in their soloing. "Truth Is Marching In" makes a triumphant New Orleans-style crash, while "Divine Peacemaker" has the regal quality of the music that announces a monarch's arrival. "Angels" is a lovely, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, duet between Ayler and pianist Call Cobbs Jr. The latter's changes are fashioned after the manner of an early-20th-century fantasia, his piano sounding as though it had spent its youth in a dingy Western saloon. Ayler blows a sweet lament over Cobbs' rolling arpeggios, conjuring images of divine winged messengers stumbling tipsily onto a street corner after a hard day at the ol' salvation grind.

George Steele (trombone); Michael Sampson (violin); Joel Freedman (cello);

This is part of Impulse's The New Thing Series.

Live Recording

Producer: Bob Thiele.

Reissue producer: Michael Cuscuna.

Personnel: Albert Ayler (alto saxophone, tenor saxophone); Michel Sampson (violin); Joel Freedman (cello); George Steele (trombone); Sunny Murray, Beaver Harris (drums).

Recording information: Village Gate, New York, NY (03/28/1965-02/26/1967); Village Theatre, New York, NY (03/28/1965-02/26/1967); Village Vanguard, New York, NY (03/28/1965-02/26/1967).

Photographer: Chuck Stewart.

Personnel: Albert Ayler (alto & tenor saxophones); Donald Ayler (trumpet);

The Wire (12/98, p.52) - "...Ayler's music sought out extremes of passion, never anger or frustration....but hear the music - if only for sheer emotion that rouses the blood and lifts the spirt like few other experiences of our time."