The Boy Who Cried Freebird (22 page)

I believe it was 1981. I was a college student at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. My sister, her boyfriend, my date, and I were attending a big Jeff Beck concert at the local arena. It was a little bit more than halfway through the show when I turned to my sister's beau and said, “Do you have a comb?”

He acknowledged that he did indeed have a comb and pulled it out of his back pocket to offer it to me. So I said, “Throw it on the stage.”

He said, “What?” and I said again, “Throw it on the stage.”

Of course, things were pretty noisy with Jeff Beck wailing away on his guitar and my sister's boyfriend wasn't exactly the smartest dude anyway, so he said, “What?”

This time I yelled at him, “Throw it on the stage! Throw the comb on the stage!” The poor guy just looked at me, unable to see any purpose behind my command, and stood there frozen with the comb in his hand.

Finally, I said, “Screw it” and grabbed the comb from him. I hurled it onto the stage where it fell about ten feet from where Jeff Beck was playing his guitar. For the next twenty minutes we watched Jeff Beck with rapt attention.

“He didn't see it,” my date said. “Just wait” was my measured response.

Naturally, my sister's boyfriend was kind of angry that I had thrown his nice comb onto the stage, but we were never that close and I wasn't too concerned about how he might have felt.

The show began drawing to a close and Jeff Beck was standing just a few feet away from the stupid comb. As he stalked the stage, Beck seemed to be walking all around the comb but never looked down or gave any indication that he might have noticed it lying there.

“He doesn't see it!” my date shouted. “Just wait!” I yelled.

Then, Jeff Beck was standing right over the gosh-darned comb, his legs splayed in a classic rock guitar-god pose. We were going nuts in anticipation. “He doesn't see it!” my date screamed as she pounded on my shoulder with her fists. “He sees it!” I screamed back.

Suddenly, as if on cue, Jeff Beck reached down, grabbed the comb, and viciously attacked the six strings of his electric guitar making a raucous, buzz-saw squall with the teeth of the plastic utensil.

Then he threw the comb back into the crowd.

After the show was over, everyone kept asking how I'd known that Jeff Beck was going to use the comb I'd thrown his way. I answered then as I do now—with a shrug, and then a wink.

And although I can't ever seem to recall the name of my sister's old boyfriend, you have to admit, it was a night to remember.

On July 21, 1967, Albert Ayler was dressed in white and blowing his saxophone up toward the heavens. Ayler often reared back and played with his tenor pointed high, but this time the gesture had a particular spiritual significance; he was performing at John Coltrane's funeral services. At Coltrane's request, only Ornette Coleman's ensemble and Ayler's group played at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Manhattan that day.

Since Ornette Coleman was considered Coltrane's equal—one who'd contributed greatly to the birth of a new, original music—it was easy to imagine Trane's parting gesture as a passing of the torch to Ayler, the younger saxophone hopeful.

The free-jazz explosion of the 1960s had been instigated years earlier by a few select visionaries: pianist Cecil Taylor, who combined his classical training with a doggedly improvisational approach; altoist Coleman, who brought his exceptional quartet from Los Angeles to New York in 1959 and blew everybody's minds; astral bandleader Sun Ra, who claimed to be from outer space and led the most innovative big band since Duke Ellington's; and the determinedly inventive saxophone giant, John Coltrane.

Albert Ayler arrived on the scene well after those innovators, when New York was teeming with young musicians caught up in the sounds of the changing times. The music they made had many different names: the New Thing, free jazz, energy music, and avant-garde. Later on, it was called Black Classical Music or Great Black Music, though some practitioners were white.

Race could be an issue, but it was the confluence between black and white bohemia—often occurring in the East Village—that allowed for much of the new music to develop. Free jazz wasn't being played in clubs at the time, and the musicians were forced to create their own scene amidst a shifting urban backdrop.

The culture wars had begun and avant-garde jazz coincided with the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, political assassinations, psychedelic consciousness, white and black radicalism, and the influx of Eastern philosophies. Old beats and young folkies were still cavorting in Greenwich Village cafés near the corners of Bleecker and Mac-Dougal, and rock 'n' roll was rearing its head for the second or third time.

Brandishing its deep black cultural roots, the “New Thing” came to life in Village coffeehouses like the Take 3 and converted performance spaces like the Astor Place Playhouse or the Dom. It thrived in outdoor parks, community centers, lofts, and the sawdust-and-spit confines of Slugs' Saloon on the Lower East Side.

“We were all in New York during the revolution,” remembered saxophonist Sonny Simmons. “And all them bad motherfuckers were rebelling against all that old, tired shit. We had Duke Ellington and Count Basie and all them swinging, jamming and jumping off of the rafters. Here comes the Beatles, and here comes James Brown talking about ‘Give it up.' Here comes Marvin Gaye, all these people—Smokey Robinson, Janis Joplin, and Big Brother and the Holding Company.
The brothers changed things, but Albert Ayler…was the only brother I know, other than Eric Dolphy, who shook Coltrane up. I was there and I witnessed it.”

The voices of free jazz converged in Manhattan and then shot out across the world. Besides the groups of Coleman, Taylor, Sun Ra, and Coltrane, other improvisational collectives were emerging and a grand sense of unity pervaded.

“We were all in the same place at the same time,” recalled drummer Rashied Ali. “It was so strange how we all were thinking about playing something different as far as the music was concerned. Everybody was so compatible—we were into the same kind of a groove and it was great.”

In 1964, the free-jazz scene coalesced into a series of concerts—wryly called the October Revolution—held at the Cellar Café. Many of the renegades who participated in the October Revolution also helped to form the (short-lived) Jazz Composers Guild. Albert performed with them, but he never joined the organization. Ayler was soft-spoken, articulate, and enthusiastic, and he followed his own vision.

“I walked into the Take 3 one night in 1963,” said trombonist Roswell Rudd. “I heard something the likes of which I never heard before, which was Albert Ayler—in a green leather suit with a white patch on his beard—and Cecil Taylor and [drummer] Sunny Murray and [bassist] Lewis Worrell playing on the far side of the room. I was just shattered by what they played, so when Albert came to the front to go outside, I introduced myself. I said, ‘Who are you?' He said, ‘Oh, I'm nobody.' I said, ‘Well, it didn't
sound
that way.'”

“Albert was not only original, he was incredibly accessible,” maintained pianist/composer Carla Bley. “People who didn't even understand music could get into what he was playing because it was that joyful kind of playing, upbeat and with some very maudlin elements.
It was beautiful and we all just loved it—everyone I knew at that time, which was a bunch of freaks.”

Ayler's sonic journey essentially paralleled the emergence of free jazz. Many other free players enjoyed lengthy careers, but his time on Earth was cut short. On November 25, 1970, Albert's body was found floating in the East River.

His death at the age of thirty-four was an unexpected tragedy, mysterious at the time and still shrouded in a little bit of did-he-jump-or-was-he-pushed speculation.

The improvisational scene that he helped to launch continues to evolve, but Ayler's immense sound will always epitomize the free-jazz boom of the 1960s.

Albert died the same year Jimi Hendrix did. Both men were cosmic musicians who spread a universal message before leaving this planet for places unknown to you and me (but not to Sun Ra). There were other similarities: They both enlisted in the armed services and later interpreted “The Star-Spangled Banner” (Albert three years before Jimi). Each used his instrument to create groundbreaking sounds, and both were hip minstrels who spoke in ecstatic terms (remember Hendrix's vision of an electric sky church?). Both experienced undue pressure from the music business and died under abrupt, premature circumstances. Numerous concert recordings by both men have been released posthumously, and the mystique surrounding their deaths—and their cults of personality—endures.

But Albert Ayler's existence has an even greater context that must be considered. “The story really begins in 1899,” said Sonny Simmons. “That's the year Duke Ellington was born.”

So then, with the entire history of jazz as a guiding light, let's examine the life and times of Albert Ayler lest his spiritualized music and buoyant message be passed over one more time.

On July 13, 1936, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, Albert was born into the deeply religious, middle-class household of Edward and Myrtle Ayler. Edward played the saxophone and he gave lessons to Albert and his younger brother, Donald.

The boys performed duets with their father at church, but it was Albert who displayed the prodigious talent. At age ten, under the supervision of jazz enthusiast Benny Miller, he began studying at the Academy of Music.

When Albert was twelve his mother became handicapped, unable to walk, and his father abandoned the Baptist Church for a more fervent Pentecostal congregation. Albert played alto saxophone and oboe and occupied first chair in the high-school band. As captain of the golf team, he brought home several trophies—an unlikely feat for a diminutive black kid growing up in segregated Cleveland during the early '50s.

Intrigued by the big-sounding tenor saxophonists of the time, an underage Albert started sneaking into nightclubs with his friend Lloyd Pearson. Albert also joined his friend's new band, Lloyd Pearson and the Counts of Rhythm.

Albert was at a local jam session when he came to the attention of “Little” Walter Jacobs, a tough harmonica player who'd been a mainstay in Muddy Waters's group. Albert played Cleveland gigs with Jacobs and joined the hard-living bluesman for two summers on the road. He also played (briefly) with the talented R&B singer from New Orleans, Lloyd Price.

Working the bruising bar circuit with these journeymen was difficult for young Albert. He wasn't used to the hard traveling, or playing for rowdy audiences. The older musicians drank heavily, and Walter chastised the young man for not knowing how to hold long notes on his saxophone. Albert eventually mastered that crowd-pleasing technique,
and other aspects of his education in great black music took precedence. He started dressing the part of a hip, downtown slickster and had no trouble meeting women.

Graduating from John Adams High School in 1955, Albert considered college, but like many young men of his generation, he joined the army to improve his lot. A fledgling bebopper with alto in hand, he arrived at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in 1956. There, he met bassist Lewis Worrell and drummer Beaver Harris, both of whom would later “convert” to free jazz and play with Albert (again) in the 1960s.

And just as he shifted from gospel to R&B and finally to jazz, the army moved Albert from Cleveland to Kentucky and then Europe, where he spent most of his time stationed in Orléans, France.

He entered the service a straight-ahead jazz musician, but Albert's army stint pushed him in some unanticipated directions. As part of the U.S Army's 113th Military Band and later the 76th Adjutant General's Army Band, he spent hours practicing martial music and consuming the proximal sounds of the French military bands.

As a member of the 76th, he rehearsed constantly and honed his ability to read music. The army band traveled across France and Germany as Albert played pop, jazz, anthems, and local hits, as well as the requisite military themes.

Ayler was still listening to the newest records by Coltrane, Coleman, and Sonny Rollins, but he was also digesting the European folk forms of France, Sweden, and Finland. Later in his career he would perform circular renderings of the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise.” This was before the Beatles used the regal theme to introduce “All You Need Is Love.”

More significant was Ayler's sage appropriation of a quaint melody from a 1961 Swedish radio hit called “Torparvisan” (“Little
Farmer's Song”). Ayler's composition, which he titled “Ghosts,” only tangentially resembles the Swedish ditty, but its joyful, singsong melody would become an unofficial anthem of the free-jazz movement.

“Most folk music is very simple and not burdened by fancy harmonies,” said Copenhagen-born altoist John Tchicai. “It's down to earth and original, and in most cases, it's public property, free for all to use and interpret. If one makes an interpretation of a folk song, it isn't necessary to think of composers' rights; you can thereafter call that piece of music for your arrangement. Albert was looking for simplicity. His approach was to go deep into the music, to look for the roots in the material and to express himself with that through his spirituality.”

While he eagerly absorbed contrasting musical disciplines, Ayler's quest for his own sound was an ongoing struggle. He was hip to bebop icon Charlie “Bird” Parker—Ayler was sometimes called “Little Bird” back in Cleveland—but while playing at the USO clubs and the Paris cabarets, Albert took a hard left turn.

Deconstructing well-known standards on the bandstand, his savage sound and fractured sense of time became increasingly aberrant. French audiences howled, and fellow musicians were quick to leave the stage when he heedlessly disrupted the familiar bop melodies.

Still, Ayler cut a sharp figure in Europe, and the little black man, dressed in tailored leather suits and multicolored hats, was by all accounts outgoing and sociable. His new sound was just too freakishly emotional for conventional jazz fans and he was ridiculed to his face, behind his back, and on the bandstand.

Some musicians maliciously called Ayler “The Dwarf,” and after making him wait all night to sit in, they'd desert the stage or simply refuse to play. Undaunted, Albert kept searching for new musical allies.

Albert had switched from alto to tenor saxophone, giving him a
more emotive, fundamental sound. Illuminating his great black heritage, Ayler's raw playing traced a lineage from the Baptist church and gospel hymns to blues shouts and jumping, moaning R&B. It connected Albert to previous generations of saxophonists like Lester Young, Illinois Jacquet, and Earl Bostic, as well as progressives like Rollins and Coltrane. His was the lost history of jubilant Dixieland, not to mention boss tenor players like Big Jay McNeely, crowd-pleasing honkers who performed lying on their backs or walking the bar at crowded speakeasies.

In early 1961, Ayler was transferred to Fort Ord, California, near Monterey, to await discharge. He was only in California for a short time, but the jazz community there still managed to reject him, just as they'd snubbed Ornette Coleman years earlier.

When Albert finally returned to Cleveland, he was a changed man. His saxophone style was barely recognizable and he was already planning a return to Sweden, where the women were blond and the music fans more receptive to new ideas.

Sweden wasn't everything that Albert had expected, however, and he ended up playing on conventional tours with unremarkable dance combos. He tried to sit in with musicians whenever he could, but Albert mostly alienated the Scandinavian players, as well as the cash-conscious club owners and their unsuspecting patrons.

Meanwhile, his tenor attack was growing even stronger, his use of vibrato more strident, and Albert was promptly banned from jam sessions in Stockholm.

Ayler met several legendary jazz players in Sweden, as northern Europe was a haven for black musicians with its appreciative audiences, paying gigs, and relief from America's racism. Albert encountered his hero Sonny Rollins, elfin trumpeter Don Cherry, and, most important, pianist Cecil Taylor.

Albert was ecstatic upon hearing Cecil Taylor's group in Stockholm; he'd finally felt the rapport he was searching for and pushed himself onto Taylor's band, playing with them in Copenhagen and extracting a promise of more jobs in New York. He enjoyed a special affinity with Taylor's drummer Sunny Murray and began making his plans to return to the United States. With his own sound emerging, Albert had heard the call of freedom.