Albert Ayler Live in Greenwich Village 1967

Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Sessions (2 CDs)

FLAC (EAC rip) & mp3 @ 320 kbps | ~950 MB FLAC; | ~ 292 MB (mp3); ~20 MB (scans)

Label: Impulse! | Recorded: 1966-1967 | This Release: 1998



Recorded at The Village Gate, New York City, on March 28, 1965, Dec 18, 1966 and Feb 26, 1967

Disc One:
1 - Holy Ghost 07:41
2 - The Truth Is Marching In 12:42
3 - Our Prayer 04:45
4 - Spirits Rejoice 16:22
5 - Divine Peacemaker 12:37
6 - Angels 09:53

Disc Two:
1 - For John Coltrane 13:40
2 - Change Has Come 06:24
3 - Light in Darkness 10:59
4 - Heavenly Home 08:51
5 - Spiritual Rebirth 04:26
6 - Infinite Spirit 06:37
7 - Omega Is the Alpha 10:46
8 - Universal Thoughts 08:22

All compositions by Albert Ayler, except Our Prayer by Don Ayler.

Personnel on Disc One #1:
Albert Ayler - tenor saxophone Don Ayler - trumpet Joel Freedman - cello Lewis Worrell - bass Sunny Murray - drums
Recorded at The Village Gate, New York City, on March 28, 1965

Personnel on Disc One #2-5:
Albert Ayler - tenor saxophone Don Ayler - trumpet Michel Sampson - violin Bill Folwell & Henry Grimes - basses Beaver Harris - drums
Recorded at The Village Vanguard, New York City, on December 18, 1966

Personnel on Disc One #6:
Albert Ayler - tenor saxophone probably Call Cobbs Jr. - piano
Recorded at The Village Vaanguard, New York City, on December 18, 1966

Personnel on Disc Two:
Albert Ayler - alto saxophone (#1), tenor saxophone (all others) Don Ayler - trumpet (except on #1) George Steele - trombone (on #8 only) Michel Sampson - violin Joel Freedman - cello Bill Folwell & Alan Silva - basses Beaver Harris - drums (except on #1)
Recorded at The Village Theatre, New York City, on February 26, 1967

mp3 CD1 - part1 - part2
mp3 CD2 - part1 - part2

Live in Greenwich Village was Albert Ayler\’s first recording for Impulse, and is arguably his finest moment, not only for the label, but ever. This double-CD reissue combines both of the Village concerts — documented only partially on previously released LPs — recorded in 1965 and 1966 with two very different groups. The Village gigs reveal the mature Ayler whose music embodied bold contradictions: There are the sweet, childlike, singalong melodies contrasted with violent screaming peals of emotion, contrasted with the gospel and R&B shouts of jubilation, all moving into and through one another. On the 1965 date, which featured Ayler, his brother Donald on trumpet, Joel Freedman on cello, bassist Lewis Worrell, and the great Sunny Murray on drums, the sound is one of great urgency. Opening with "Holy Ghost," the Aylers come out stomping and Murray double times them to bring the bass and cello to ground level in order to anchor musical proceedings to their respective generated sounds. "Truth Is Marching In" casts a bleating, gospelized swirl against a backdrop of three- and four-note "sung" phrases that are constantly repeated, à la a carny band before kicking down all the doors and letting it rip for almost 13 minutes. On the 1967 date of the second disc, the Aylers are augmented with drummer Beaver Harris, violinist Michel Sampson, Bill Folwell and Alan Silva on basses, and trombonist George Steele on the closer, "Universal Thoughts." "For John Coltrane" opens the set with a sweltering abstraction of tonalities in the strings and horns. On "Change Has Come," the abstraction remains but the field of language is deeper, denser, more urgent. Only with "Spiritual Rebirth," which opens with a four-note theme, does one get the feeling that the band has been pacing itself for this moment, and that the concert has become an actual treatise on the emotion of "singing" as an ensemble in uncharted territories. Throughout the rest of the set, Ayler\’s band buoys him perfectly, following him up through every new cloud of unknowing into a sublime musical and emotional beyond which, at least on recordings, would never be realized again. This recording is what all the fuss is about when it comes to Ayler. –Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

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.