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Columns Warp + Weft Warp + Weft: Albert Ayler :: Spiritual Unity
Columns Warp + Weft Warp + Weft: Albert Ayler :: Spiritual Unity | Warp + Weft: Albert Ayler :: Spiritual Unity |
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| Written by Steve McPherson | |
| Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at 11:14 PM | |
 Albert Ayler :: Spiritual Unity Spiritual Unity ESP Records 1964 As a genre, music criticism's greatest failing is not really in its judgmental tone, but in how little attention is paid to the way we listen to music, and in music's ability not to merely meet, exceed, or fall short of our expectations, but to shift those expectations entirely. Simple affection or distaste for a piece of music will always be the cornerstone of the listening experience, but is that really all there is? People (often on their MySpace pages) like to make broad pronouncements about how they like all kinds of music except rap and country. Or that they don't listen to classical music, or that jazz is too cerebral for them. But they weren't born with these tastes hardwired into their brains—like anything, they were developed. To stop pushing those tastes out further, to stand pat where you've gotten as a music listener, is to essentially give up. Even if you think you already know what you like, I guarantee you: step outside your preconceptions a little, and you can learn about more than just music. Take jazz, for instance. Leaving aside tepid pablum like Kenny G for now, most jazz turns the casual listener off. Serious jazz like Charlie Parker feels frenetic and impenetrable, and that's a perfectly valid response. Jazz musicians have devoted more time to honing their abilities than most of us devote to anything, and that can lead to an endless hungry quest for personal development that will inevitably leave the mass of people scratching their heads. If successfully and capably navigating difficult changes is an itch for a jazz musician, scratching that itch simply leads to harder to reach itches. And so faced with a friend who finds bebop too taxing, the jazz fan is forced to resort to the old standbys when it comes to getting people interested in jazz: Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, Dave Brubeck's Time Out, maybe Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby. Those are all great records—classics, really—but let's be straight: it's pacification, and maybe there's another way. Someone who can't really get into straight jazz should absolutely be steered clear of free jazz, right? But then there's saxophonist Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity. In a genre that's often misunderstood to be either too easy ("It's just noise that anyone can make.") or too smarty-pantsed ("Do they think they're too good for chords?"), Spiritual Unity is strikingly primitive and simple, but it does require a certain attenuation both of focus and expectation. If you initially approach Spiritual Unity by trying to pull it apart, it's going to resist. Recorded in the summer of 1964 (that is, after The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and before Coltrane's A Love Supreme) at Variety Arts Recording Studio in New York, the album has a gritty and monolithic sound that was actually an accident. After the session, ESP label head Bernard Stollman discovered that, despite requesting a stereo recording, engineer Jerry Newman had recorded it in mono, but this only reinforces the powerfully collective dynamic of the improvisation on the record. The sound is solid, but not thick. Sunny Murray's fluid and responsive drumming never overpowers Ayler's tenor sax or Gary Peacock's upright bass. Later in his career, Ayler would experiment with larger groups, and the sound of those ensembles would draw more heavily on marching band and gospel tonalities, but here, the focus is squarely on simple, folk-like melodies. It's these melodies that are the entry points for the disc. "Ghosts: First Variation" begins with what sounds like a flub or a warm-up before Ayler launches into a climbing figure that leads the band into the melody proper. For anyone expecting free blowing and aggression, it's a startlingly lucid and beautiful line, and one you can easily whistle. When the melody concludes and the group begins to lay into the piece in earnest, "Ghosts" grows a couple thorns, but that's where its real heart lies. What it gives you (and what any good free jazz gives you) is a level of freedom (and responsibility) as a listener that's almost unparalleled. This is not music that's going to lead you by the nose anywhere; you're free to choose your path. You're free to focus in on the way Murray's cascading cymbals rise and fall against his deft work on the snare; free to follow Ayler along his molten saxophone lines as they burn their way through the rhythm section's support; free to listen to the way Peacock alternately supports and prods Ayler along. Or you can simply absorb the totality of the sound. It's a resolutely physical mass of music, and you don't have to seek to understand it to appreciate it. Even if you're never going to get into free jazz, listening to some stuff like this every once in a while is like throwing some donuts on your musical appreciation bat—a little heavy lifting not only makes your regular fare seem easier, it gives you a new appreciation for the simple mechanics of listening to music. For example, there are two versions of "Ghosts" on Spiritual Unity: a first variation and a second. Up front, the variations are almost identical, and even though the second one is nearly twice as long, it doesn't represent a vastly different approach. Instead, it simply presents a different way of carving the same object. With jazz or any heavily improvised musical form, it often seems not so much like the musicians are making the song from pre-cut pieces as they are chipping away at an agreed upon idea of the song together to create one version of some kind of Platonic ideal of the tune. For instance, imagine you couldn't record sound—perhaps a chart would exist for a straight tune, and perhaps for something like "Ghosts," there would just be a melody and a suggested direction, but a definitive version would never be created. And so, like the idea of a horse versus an actual horse, each iteration of "Ghosts" would manifest certain characteristics that would match up with the idea of "Ghosts," but would also diverge moment to moment as the musicians played it. As you became familiar with "Ghosts" over many performances, you'd pick up on nuances and variations in each one, enriching your idea of the tune. In a way, it's unfortunate that studio versions of songs like "Ghosts" rob us of some of that chance to "learn" a song (i.e. not how to play it, but in the sense of developing familiarity with its possibilities), and by having two variations of "Ghosts"—even if they outwardly appear similar—Spiritual Unity breaks down some of those assumptions about the authority of the studio version. The most open track on this short record (four songs, less than 29 minutes) is the elegiac "Spirits," and it's also the most straightforward. You'll find it streamed below: The opening wail of Ayler's sax is an excellent example of his signature wide vibrato on the instrument, and note for note, it has to be one of the most anguished and beautiful opening lines of any song I've ever heard. As Peacock's bowed bass enters behind it, it refuses to define it or simplify it harmonically, and likewise Murray's drums rattle in sympathy but also recede in places. And so Ayler is essentially left out front, navigating the tune more by feel than by sight. It feels dark, the saxophone tentatively reaching out as it moves forward unsteadily. At about the 3:30 mark, Ayler and Peacock begin interacting in earnest, but before long, Ayler is gone, leaving Peacock and Murray to continue their conversation in long, loping arcs. Tracking each and every moment of concordance here is ultimately futile, and beside the point. With a trio this dialed in, it's really enough to simply cue it up and let it play. If you expect free jazz to be harsh and discordant, you'll be surprised to find "Spirits" pensive, mournful, and lyrical. There's nothing wrong with easy pleasures; nothing wrong with songs that scratch your pop itch. But a real love of music will push you to find new borders, not just stay stuck in the same rut. It essentially comes down to the idea of the acquired taste: On the one hand, it's something that initially turns you off, but on the other, an appreciation for it is something earned, not simply handed to you. You think rock and roll is all about rebellion and freedom? Try some music that abandons traditional song structure. Maybe you like the lo-fi, D.I.Y. aesthetic of four-track demos—can I interest you in a mono recording made with a handful of mics? None of which is to privilege any kind of music over another, but simply to say that, like life, your appreciation of music is enriched when your experience of it is as broad as possible. You don't have to become a jazz snob to appreciate the sharp and rugged, yet lyrical and thoughtful music on Spiritual Unity—just give it a shot, and come back a little changed. RECOMMENDED LISTENING Albert Ayler :: Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings :: Impulse :: 1965–1967 (reissued 1998) Peter Brötzmann :: Machine Gun :: FMP :: 1968 Sonny Sharock :: Ask the Ages :: Axiom :: 1991 |
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| Last Updated: Friday, September 28, 2007 at 11:59 AM |
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