HEALING FORCE: THE SONGS OF ALBERT AYLER Cunieform 255
“He
Vinny Golia / reeds, Aurora Josephson / voice, Henry Kaiser / guitar (and producer), Mike Keneally / piano, guitar and voice, Joe Morris / guitar and double bass, Damon Smith / double bass, Weasel Walter / drums. Aurora Josephson / art work.
Recorded: May 3, 2006

Healing Force revisits and reclaims songs of the late Albert Ayler and lyricist/vocalist Mary Maria Parks.

The CD includes songs from Ayler’s final Impulse LPs - Love Cry, New Grass, Music is the Healing Force of the Universe - and demo tapes for New Grass that appeared on the recently released Holy Ghost box set (Revenant).

This is an inspired collection of work that references not only Ayler’s songs but the spiritual force behind them. This force drove a whole period of music. Players felt that by harnessing the transcendent power of free jazz, they (and listeners) might attain spiritual union and oneness with the Divine and All That Is.

This association of free jazz with spiritual awakening gained wide acceptance with the release of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (recorded December 1964). But Ayler, with his strong religious and musical background, had made the connection earlier. In February 1964, at the same session that produced Witches and Devils (Polydor) he recorded a number of “free” spirituals. The titles of his tunes on Witches and Devils had broadly spiritual overtones as well.

The recently released New Grass demo material suggests that, whatever one thinks about the music of late-period Albert Ayler (and the behind-the-scenes record company machinations that produced it), that material was a logical outgrowth of Ayler’s evolving musical aesthetic. The demo material suggests Ayler’s attempt to return to the roots of the spiritual with an end toward creating something new.

“Let the Spirit move you through the path of life.
“Don’t forget the Holy Ghost.”

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THE FREE MUSIC FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA Void Leaper Productions vl 1376

Composed and Conducted By John Gruntfest. Live at the Fourth Annual Free Music Festival, Metropolitan Art Center, San Francisco, March 24. 1979.
“Dedicated to the Great SF Free Players of the ‘70s”

Musicians (A Partially Reconstructed Listing): Saxophones / John Gruntfest, Larry Ochs, Bruce Ackley, Andrew Voigt, Robert Bluewater Haven, Kersti Arbams, Genevieve Boulet de Monrel, Harvey Varga, Steve Deutdch, Jim Warshour, Hal Richards, Alfonso Texidor, Jim Schwartz, Henry Kuntz, Asil Lasi, Phillip Friend, Niel Barkley, Ben Bossi, Henry Peters, Kirk Allen, Weldon McCarty, Dennis Saputelli; Flutes/Clarinets / Albert Kovitz, Patrick Wallace, Edward Ache, Richard Dworkin, Gail Edwards, Tim Lambert, Eugene Cash, Marcia Smith, France Fortier; Brass / Bobby Bueghler, Ron Heglin, Hal Hughes, Lea Merrick, Loren Means. And many others for now and forever Mystery Guests.

Cover: Dori Seda’s playful drawing, elephants roaring and raging above the orchestra, was made immediately following the performance. An artist of many talents, Dori left this planet some years ago at age 38. The whereabouts of her various paintings are unknown.

In a time before this time, in our same physical space, there was a musical era connected to our own but of another character and dimension. In calendar time, it was about 25 years ago. In musical time, it was like the day before yesterday; but it could also have been tomorrow, because its sound was the sound of tomorrow.

The music of this era strove to be larger than itself. Its musical freedom was no mere technical achievement but an open-ended exploration that had to do with the very fabric and freedom of life. This freedom was both invigorating and frightening: invigorating in its realization, frightening in its practical implications. For the logic of liberation is such that the established ground of being of every single orthodoxy, musical or not, must fundamentally be called into question.

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On Music Criticism
[Henry Kuntz photo made by his brother Paul]

In this interview with writer and radio impresario Bob Ness, I had the opportunity to reflect on the publishing of BELLS and on the nature of music criticism. The interview took place in Berkeley, California in November 1976.

BOB NESS: WHY WAS “BELLS” STARTED?

Henry Kuntz: BELLS was started in 1973 out of a frustration with what was being written about, because it seemed to me that most of what was being focused on in the Seventies was music that was already pretty old, and that most people writing about it were writing as if it were still ten years ago. So there was little recognition of what were current developments in the music.

Part of the reason for this, I guess, was that in the Sixties there was a great deal of consciousness developed about the music being black music, and that was all well and good and as it should have been, but it didn’t prepare people for what started to happen in the Seventies, which was that white European musicians started to make contributions to the music and in some cases to go beyond what was being done in America. And so a lot of the reason BELLS was started was to deal with that music and with any music that was important that other people weren’t dealing with.

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THE ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
PERFORMANCE OF JUNE 14, 1976 AT KEYSTONE KORNER, SAN FRANCISCO and JUNE 19, 1976 AT THE RAINBOW SIGN, BERKELEY (SET ONE)

Roscoe Mitchell / reeds, flute, etc., Lester Bowie / trumpet, flugelhorn, Joseph Jarman / reeds, vibraphone, percussion, Malachi Favors / bass, percussion, Don Moye / drums, percussion.

THE FRANK LOWE QUARTET

PERFORMANCE OF JUNE 13, 1976 AT THE SOUTH BERKELEY COMMUNITY CHURCH, BERKELEY

Frank Lowe/tenor saxophone,Butch Morris/cornet, Wilbur Morris/bass, and drummer (name unknown).
 

ANTHONY BRAXTON
CREATIVE ORCHESTRA MUSIC 1976 Arista 4080
Anthony Braxton/reeds, flute, compositions, Orchestra/Leo Smith, Dave Holland, Phillip Wilson, Kenny Wheeler, Barry Altschul, Karl Berger, George Lewis, Richard Abrams, Frederick Rzewski, Roscoe Mitchell, Richard Teitelbaum.

DEREK BAILEY - EVAN PARKER

THE LONDON CONCERT Incus 16

Derek Bailey / guitar, Evan Parker / tenor and soprano saxophones.
Recorded: February 14, 1975.
 
 
 

BALANCE

Incus 11

Ian Brighton / guitar, Radu Malfatti / trombone, Phillip Wachsman / violin, Frank Perry / percussion, Colin Wood / cello (two tracks).
Recorded: September 10, 11, 1973.
 

TEATIME

Incus 15

Gary Todd / tenor saxophone (side 2 only), Dave Soloman / percussion, John Russell / guitars, Nigel Coombes / violin and low-grade electronics, Steve Beresford / piano and toys. Recorded: August 1974, April 1975.

HANS REICHEL

WICHLINGHAUSER BLUES

FMP 0150

Hans Reichel / homemade 11-string guitar (with 3 pick-ups).
Recorded: April till June 1973.
 
 
 

BONOBO

FMP 0280

Hans Reichel / 12-string electric stick guitar.
Recorded: October 1975.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

EUGENE CHADBOURNE:

VOLUME ONE: SOLO ACOUSTIC GUITAR

Parachute P-OOl

Eugene Chadbourne / 6 & 12-string guitars, prepared fretless 12-string guitar.
Recorded: November 12, 13, 1975.
 

Through its short history, jazz has been a music based more on exploration within prevailing forms than on formal exploration as such. Certain forms (bop, swing, “New Orleans” style) define whole periods of the music; and although the linear view of jazz history that stems from this type of categorization is not entirely correct, it seems true to say that the majority of musicians playing at any particular time worked within generally acknowledged and accepted structural frameworks. How else explain, for example, the widespread resistance to bop which was nothing other than a formal differentiation and advance?

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John Gruntfest Photo: Mark Weber

PERFORMANCE OF MARCH 24, 1979 AT THE METROPOLITAN ARTS CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO

The Free Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of John Gruntfest/conductor, composer, alto saxophone; plus 23 saxophones, 4 clarinets, 4 trombones, 3 trumpets, 2 flutes, 1 oboe, sackbut, and tuba.

PERFORMANCE OF AUGUST 10, 11, 1979 AT WOODY WOODMAN’S FINGER PALACE, BERKELEY

John Gruntfest / solo alto saxophone, voice, dance, percussion, etc., and in combination with various other musicians (mentioned below).

(All interjections in the following article are from John Gruntfest’s “First Manifesto,” October 1971, Bolinas, California, Copyright 1976 Gruntfest.)

I AM THE MONSTER OF GOD
I AM THE BEAST WITH TWO HEARTS

There was a natural elegance and a ritual eloquence that marked these events, a breadth and clarity of vision, and a simultaneous grandeur and simplicity. The performances were a summation of sorts for John Gruntfest, the musical and spiritual essence of the direction his work has been moving in for any number of years now and each, in its own way, a completely definitive statement of that.

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A SIMILAR REVIEW The Beak Doctor 1

Greg Goodman / piano.
Recorded: August 6, 1973 at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace, Berkeley.

ABRACADABRA The Beak Doctor 2

Greg Goodman / piano, Evan Parker / tenor saxophone.
Recorded: November 1 & 2, 1978 at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace, Berkeley.

Goodman’s approach stems rather clearly from the directions laid down by Cecil Taylor. But his own voice, or the outlines of same, are likewise distinguishable on these two LPs. From Taylor comes the percussiveness, the tendency toward a certain forward thrust, and an already full-blown harmonic language. But the way Goodman uses these is somewhat different and, in truth, there is a pull, an inner tugging, that wants to propel the music somewhere else (someplace it has moved in the time since these recordings), and to allow more in, so that the whole can be more jagged, more wide-ranging - rhythmically, timbrally, harmonically - and thus more discontinuous overall. You can hear this in Greg’s use of the pedal, which seems constantly to want to suspend everything, yet not so much to round it off as to (possibly) cancel it out, and in the way his hands want to pull apart from each other. There’s similarly his work inside and extraneous to the piano, which clearly suggests his wanting to transcend that inherently tempered and distinctly western sound of his instrument.

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CINEMA ROVATE Metalanguage 101

THE REMOVAL OF SECRECY Metalanguage 106

DAREDEVILS Metalanguage 105

John Raskin, Larry Ochs Andrew Voigt, Bruce Ackley / various saxophones, clarinets, flute, Daredevils only: Henry Kaiser / electric and acoustic guitars.
Recorded: 101: July 25 & August 2, 1978; 106: February 12, 1979; 105: March 11, 1979.

ROVA’s playing has been treated favorably in a number of publications, and the praise is well deserved. Their richness of sound, unique compositional stylings, and generally just their success in dealing with the saxophone quartet genre are self-evident on hearing them. Yet the group’s importance may mainly be the extent to which it has been able to synthesize various technical and conceptual options. So it’s considerably less involved with the extensions of language as such than with the integration of language already formed into workable formal wholes.

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FUIGO FROM A DIFFERENT DIMENSION Bellows 001

Toshinori Kondo / trumpet, alto horn (and mutes).
Recorded: March 15, 16, & 25, and May 24, 1979.

Kondo has recorded previously with Milford Graves, Derek Bailey, Henry Kaiser, and with a Japanese group that he co-led, Evolution Ensemble Unity, but this is his most impressive recording yet. His playing, however, would seem to owe more to the work of certain trombonists - Paul Rutherford comes to mind – than to other trumpet players. His almost sole connection to the trumpet tradition (in jazz) is that he too, like Armstrong and all of the best players after him, makes use of any number of unorthodox blowing and breathing techniques to advance his aesthetic conception.

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