Albert Ayler Spiritual Unity CD

Albert Ayler Trio: Albert Ayler (tenor saxophone); Gary Peacock (bass); Sunny Murray (drums).
Recorded in New York, New York on July 10, 1964. Originally released on ESP Disc.
Albert Ayler: Albert Ayler (tenor saxophone); Gary Peacock (double bass); Sunny Murray (drums).
Spiritual Unity was the album that pushed Albert Ayler to the forefront of jazz's avant-garde, and the first jazz album ever released by Bernard Stollman's seminal ESP label. It was really the first available document of Ayler's music that matched him with a group of truly sympathetic musicians, and the results are a magnificently pure distillation of his aesthetic. Bassist Gary Peacock's full-toned, free-flowing ideas and drummer Sunny Murray's shifting, stream-of-consciousness rhythms (which rely heavily on shimmering cymbal work) are crucial in throwing the constraints off of Ayler's playing. Yet as liberated and ferociously primitive as Ayler sounds, the group isn't an unhinged mess -- all the members listen to the subtler nuances in one another's playing, pushing and responding where appropriate. Their collective improvisation is remarkably unified -- and as for the other half of the album's title, Ayler conjures otherworldly visions of the spiritual realm with a gospel-derived fervor. Titles like "The Wizard," "Spirits," and "Ghosts" (his signature tune, introduced here in two versions) make it clear that Ayler's arsenal of vocal-like effects -- screams, squeals, wails, honks, and the widest vibrato ever heard on a jazz record -- were sonic expressions of a wildly intense longing for transcendence. With singable melodies based on traditional folk songs and standard scales, Ayler took the simplest musical forms and imbued them with a shockingly visceral power -- in a way, not unlike the best rock & roll, which probably accounted for the controversy his approach generated. To paraphrase one of Ayler's most famous quotes, this music was about feelings, not notes, and on Spiritual Unity that philosophy finds its most concise, concentrated expression. A landmark recording that's essential to any basic understanding of free jazz. ~ Steve Huey
Like all the great free-jazz players, Albert Ayler possessed a musical intelligence that ranged far and wide. With an approach to the saxophone that reinvents its vocabulary, Ayler's playing tests the limits and possibilities of harmonic structure and tonality. His work is singular however, and markedly different from peers Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy, in that it is not primarily intellectual or willfully deconstructive. Instead, Ayler's aesthetic is almost naïve; his motifs are based on folk melodies and popular themes turned inside out with a luminous, superhuman emotion and intensity.
SPIRITUAL UNITY is Ayler's defining statement. Ayler, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Sunny Murray form a telepathic network of accelerating and decelerating rhythms and ideas. Ayler's voice is perfectly realized here, from the surging run of "The Wizard," to the lyrical ruminations in "Spirits," to "Ghosts," whose two variations bookend the album, musically and thematically. Ayler unleashes bird-like flurries and guttural groans deep enough to coax spirits from the earth. His aggressive attack and wide vibrato are tempered by the child-like purity of his expression, and the listener is pulled inexorably into a transcendent unity promised by the title, making SPIRITUAL UNITY a free-jazz classic.Uncut (p.123) - 5 stars out of 5 - "[The album] blends the funereal tones of tradition with the fire music syncopation that was Ayler's mid-'60s signature."
The Wire (3/00, p.56) - "... gave voice to a personal vision so occult that it seemed to emerge straight from the Book Of Revelations..."
The Wire (6/01, pp.44-6) - "...Contains peak performances..."