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viewing 1 To 20 of 20 items
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4LP BOX
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ORGM 2126LP
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2023 release. "Europe 1966 is a box set consisting of live performances from free jazz visionary Albert Ayler. Each of the four LP's highlights some of the most magnificent moments on this European tour, showcasing Ayler and his bandmates at the height of their powers. The release includes performances from Berlin, Lörrach, Stockholm, and Paris, all of which occurred within a two-week span. Ayler's masterful band on this tour included his brother Donald on trumpet, Michel Samson on violin, William Folwell on double bass, and Beaver Harris on drums. These performances have been remastered for vinyl by Dave Gardner at Infrasonic Mastering. The package also includes a 12x24" fold-out insert, featuring liner notes from John Litweller and photos from the tour. Each LP pressed on audiophile-grade black vinyl at Pallas Group in Germany."
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LP
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SVVRCH 076LP
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Reissue, originally released in 1963. Unorthodox saxophonist Albert Ayler straddled different jazz streams during his brief career. After playing with Stanley Turrentine and Harold Budd in the late 1950s, a move to Sweden brought him into the limelight, fronting his own trio. Debut album Something Different!!! comprised four dissonant songs delivered live with bassist Torbjörn Hultcrantz and drummer Sune Spångberg, with a barely recognizable rendition of showtune "I'll Remember April," an off-kilter take of Sonny Rollins's "The Stopper" (retitled "Rollins' Tune") and a wobbly cut of Miles Davis's "Tune Up," along with the original "Free." An exceptional musical experience.
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LP
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SV 136LP
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2024 repress. "In the mid-'60s, Albert Ayler found himself at the center of major transformations within jazz. On his albums for ESP-Disk', his delivery was radically aggressive and his tone blistering -- aiming for something beyond the New Thing. His music would be further energized when (at the behest of John Coltrane) Bob Thiele signed him to Impulse! As Ayler told The Plain Dealer at the time, 'It's not about notes anymore. It's a sound -- a feeling. The approach we're taking will discontinue the use of the word 'jazz.'' In Greenwich Village, Ayler's first LP on Impulse!, perfectly captures the Cleveland-born saxophonist's radiant intensity. Sourced from a pair of live engagements -- February '67 at the Village Theatre on New York's Lower East Side and December '66 at the Village Vanguard -- these recordings show an improved clarity in production and performance. Both sets feature two basses (including Alan Silva and Henry Grimes) which allowed the ensemble to go in different harmonic directions while maintaining an organic unity. Of particular interest are 'For John Coltrane,' a tribute to Ayler's mentor who would pass later that year, and 'Truth Is Marching In' where trumpeter Donald Ayler joins his brother to celebrate and ultimately deconstruct several jazz traditions to stunning effect. Vibrant in sound and vision, Albert Ayler's In Greenwich Village is a landmark statement in free jazz and a career high-point for this truly original artist. Superior Viaduct is honored to present this classic album on vinyl for the first time domestically in 30 years."
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LP
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SOW 017LP
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Recorded in Stockholm in 1962, and originally released on Sonet Records, these sessions stand as Albert Ayler's first step into a new sonic world. This was when Ayler was still dealing with classic jazz standards such as "I'll Remember April", Miles Davis's "Tune Up" and "Rollins' Tune", a declared tribute to the older master Sonny Rollins. His already super-strong tenor sax voice dominates a quiet, almost shy, local rhythm section featuring Torbjorn Hultcrant on bass and Sune Spangberg on drums. This was just before stepping into his unique, hyper energetic and ecstatic form of free jazz. This was Ayler sowing the seeds of a revolution to come. Clear vinyl; edition of 300.
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LP
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SOW 018LP
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Recorded in Stockholm on October 25, 1962, this session is one of Albert Ayler's earliest recordings, featuring a European backing group he assembled during his brief stay there, before returning to the States in 1963 and beginning his legendary run with ESP-Disk' and Impulse. Though his genius is not yet fully formed, one can easily hear he's headed that direction, and this rare and long out of print recording is an essential piece of the history from one of America's most uniquely lyrical voices on the saxophone. Clear vinyl.
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LP
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TMR 638LP
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2024 repress. "Albert Ayler's 1969 album New Grass has been misunderstood from the day of its release. The album finds Ayler experimenting with soul music and digging back into his R&B roots (he started his career playing saxophone with Chicago bluesman Little Walter), fusing it with the avant-garde free jazz (the one element of the record which garnered consistent praise) and adding the vocals of Rose Marie McCoy, The Soul Singers and Ayler himself. As if predicting the divisiveness of the record to follow, Ayler speaks directly to the listener and explains that New Grass is nothing like his albums before -- that it is of "a different dimension of his life" -- in the album opener "Message from Albert." New Grass deserves reconsideration, if not for the heavy grooves and surprising arrangements, then for its bravery in challenging norms of the time; by the '60s, jazz was well-accepted as a uniquely American art form, while soul as a genre was very much still seen as primitive. Ayler melds them together and creates something novel, adventurous, and completely his own. At the time of its release, despite its divisive reception, New Grass helped break down the unnecessary walls dividing genres and revealed music's potential freedoms. The album has gone on to influence generations of jazz, R&B, funk, hip hop, post punk, no wave and unshrinking artists like Pharaoh Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Funkadelic, Jungle Brothers, Red Krayola, Sonic Youth and Mark E. Smith. Third Man Records can't recommend this record highly enough. We are confident that it won't take but one listen for you to understand New Grass is an undeniable healing force."
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LP
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IMP 9155HLP
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2022 restock. Originally released 1967; exact reissue, 180 Gram, Gatefold sleeve. Part of the Back To Black series. Including digital download code. "During 1967-69 avant-garde innovator Albert Ayler recorded a series of albums for Impulse that started on a high level and gradually declined in quality. This LP, Ayler's first Impulse set, was probably his best for that label. There are two selections apiece from a pair of live appearances with Ayler having a rare outing on alto on the emotional 'For John Coltrane' and the more violent 'Change Has Come' while backed by cellist Joel Friedman, both Alan Silva and Bill Folwell on basses and drummer Beaver Harris. The other set (with trumpeter Donald Ayler, violinist Michel Sampson, Folwell and Henry Grimes on basses and Harris) has a strong contrast between the simple childlike melodies and the intense solos. However this LP (which was augmented later on by the two-LP set The Village Concerts) will be difficult to find." --Scott Yanow, All Music
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2LP
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FOX 008LP
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Saxophonist Albert Ayler's work straddled various streams of the jazz idiom. Nearly 50 years after his tragically early death (his drowning in the East River most likely the result of suicide), critics, fans, and detractors are still arguing over whether Ayler can be considered a true "free jazz" player or whether his unorthodox style transcended or complimented the moniker. In any case, he was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1936, the son a semi-professional saxophonist who tutored him early on alto sax and exposed him to swing and bebop, along with the church music that was a big part of his upbringing. After studying at the Cleveland Academy of Music with jazz saxophonist Benny Miller, Ayler became known as "Little Bird" after Charlie Parker, for his mastery of bebop. As a teenager, he was already playing tenor saxophone in Little Walter's blues band during school holidays, and when he joined the US Army in 1958, Ayler began playing with fellow GIs such as tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and the experimental composer, poet and keyboardist Harold Budd; he permanently switched from alto to tenor in this phase. Upon leaving the Army, Ayler sought work in Los Angeles and Cleveland, but found resistance from the purists for his continual pushing of boundaries. Relocating to Sweden in 1962 was the bridge to a successful recording and performing career as he led various Swedish and Danish groups on radio sessions, playing in an informal and uncredited capacity in Cecil Taylor's band in late 1962. The Albert Ayler Trio then consisted of Ayler, bassist Torbjörn Hultcrantz, and drummer Sune Spångberg; four dissonant songs from their live performance on October 24, 1962 would be issued on the Bird Notes label in Sweden as Something Different!!!!!! and reissued overseas as the first edition of The First Recordings; it included a barely-recognizable rendition of showtune "I'll Remember April", an off-kilter take of Sonny Rollins's "The Stopper" retitled "Rollins' Tune", and a wobbly cut of Miles Davis's "Tune Up", along with the original "Free". The exceedingly rare The First Recordings, Vol. 2 was also issued on Bird Notes -- at least in test pressings with photos of Ayler glued to the cover -- comprised of three extended meditations of discord, namely blown mutations of showtunes "Softly As In A Morning Sunrise" and "I Didn't Know What Time It Was", along with a growling cut of Count Basie's "Good Bait".
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LP
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ESPDISK 1010EP
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Reissue on 180-gram opaque white vinyl. Originally released in 1965. The transitional "Bells" was just under 20 minutes, released originally as one side of a clear vinyl LP with the other side empty of music. It was recorded at a May 1, 1965, Town Hall concert of ESP artists, displaying Albert Ayler's new group, which added Albert's brother Donald and Charles Tyler. The denser sound of "Bells" shows Ayler moving towards the bigger sonic statement made on Spirits Rejoice (ESPDISK 1020CD/LP), his September 23, 1965, Judson Hall session. By the way, "Bells" as heard here is not, in fact, a single composition; rather, it is a medley moving from "Holy Ghost" to an unnamed theme and then into "Bells" proper. ESP-Disk' founder Bernard Stollman was so excited by "Bells" that it was released without delaying to record additional music to fill the other side of the LP. Both Donald Ayler and Charles Tyler were making their recorded debuts; Tyler would go on to record for ESP as a leader (Charles Tyler Ensemble (ESPDISK 1029CD, 1966), and Eastern Man Alone (ESPDISK 1059CD, 1967)). One vinyl pressing of Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD/LP) in the '60s substituted a different track for "Spirits." Mr. Stollman had no memory of how this had happened, but it was subsequently corrected and became a rarity known only to rabid collectors and ESP fanatics. The one that is on all the CDs (except for one Japanese release with both) and all the rest of the vinyl editions is the same tune as what is titled "Saints" on Witches & Devils (aka Spirits, recorded on February 24, 1964). The anomalous substitution, which does sound somewhat similar, is the same tune known as "Vibrations" on the album Vibrations (aka Ghosts) and as "[tune Q]2" in Revenant's Holy Ghost boxed set. Martin Davidson (owner of Emanem, another indie label responsible for many groundbreaking jazz releases) suggested that ESP-Disk' include this mysterious rarity on its 50th-anniversary CD edition of Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD), and supplied the sound file. ESP kept the vinyl edition of Spiritual Unity as originally intended. How to get "Vibrations" out on vinyl, then? Well, Bells has long had plenty of open space on its B-side. . . .
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LP
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ESPDISK 3030LP
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2023 restock. ESP-Disk present a reissue of Albert Ayler's Prophecy, originally released in 1975. Recorded in concert at the Cellar Cafe, NYC, June 14, 1964. Three weeks before this trio recorded ESP-Disk's first jazz album, the epochal Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD/LP), it was captured "live" by Canadian poet Paul Haines, who also recorded the New York Eye and Ear Control soundtrack (ESPDISK 1016CD/LP). This is one of the most influential groups in jazz history, a coming together of like-minded innovators who would be considered crucial influences by succeeding generations, so there is no question of the immense value of this material. Yoked, in the CD era, to the one-sided 1965 LP Bells (ESPDISK 4076CD), made with a different band in a very different style a year later, it is perhaps best appreciated on its own. Personnel: Albert Ayler - tenor saxophone; Gary Peacock - bass; Sunny Murray - drums; Paul Haines - engineer. Presented here on opaque yellow vinyl.
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LP
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JD 107LP
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Recorded in Stockholm on October 25, 1962, this session is one of Albert Ayler's earliest recordings, and features a European backing group he assembled during his brief stay in Sweden before returning to the States in 1963 and beginning his legendary run with ESP-Disk' and Impulse! Though his genius is not yet fully formed, one can easily hear he's headed that direction, and this rare and long out-of-print recording is an essential piece of the history of one America's most uniquely lyrical voices on the saxophone.
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LP
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JD 110LP
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Recorded in Stockholm on October 25, 1962, this session is one of Albert Ayler's earliest recordings, featuring a European backing group he assembled during his brief stay there, before returning to the States in 1963 and beginning his legendary run with ESP-Disk and Impulse. Though his genius is not yet fully formed, one can easily hear he's headed that direction, and this rare and long out of print recording is an essential piece of the history from one of America's most uniquely lyrical voices on the saxophone.
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2CD
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ESPDISK 4076CD
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2024 restock. Albert Ayler's trio with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray is best known for the July 10, 1964, recording of Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD), the album that made both Ayler and ESP-Disk' famous when it was released in 1965. A decade after that, in 1975, ESP-Disk' also released, as Prophecy (ESP-3030), the first documentation of the group, recorded a month before Spiritual Unity by Canadian poet Paul Haines at a concert at a 91st Street club. These Cellar Café recordings are augmented here beyond the five cuts from the original Prophecy release by another six tracks from the same gig. (This edition uses the more accurate titles found on their release in the 2004 Holy Ghost box set on Revenant, rather than the fanciful titles from their 1996 first issue, as Albert Smiles with Sunny on the German label InRespect. Note also that "Wizard" on CD 1 and "The Wizard" on CD 2 are different compositions.)
1965 yielded Ayler treasures as his style shifted. The transitional Bells was just under 20 minutes, originally released in 1965 as one side of a clear vinyl LP, with the other side empty of music. It was recorded at a May 1, 1965, Town Hall concert of ESP artists, displaying Ayler's new group. Murray remained, Albert's brother Donald joined on trumpet, and Lewis Worrell held down the bass slot. The denser sound of "Bells" shows Ayler moving toward the bigger sonic statement made on Spirits Rejoice (ESPDISK 1020CD/LP, 1965), his September 23, 1965, Judson Hall session. By the way, "Bells" as heard here is not, in fact, a single composition; rather, it is a medley moving from "Holy Ghost" to an unnamed theme and then into "Bells" proper. ESP-Disk' founder Bernard Stollman was so excited by "Bells" that he released it on one side of an LP without delaying to record additional music to fill the other side. "Bells" also happens to be the recorded debut of saxophonist Charles Tyler, who would go on to record for ESP as a leader (Charles Tyler Ensemble (ESPDISK 1029CD, 1966), and Eastern Man Alone (ESPDISK 1059CD, 1967)).
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LP
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ESPDISK 1016LP
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2022 restock; 2017 repress; originally released in 1966. Featured artists: Albert Ayler (tenor sax), Ed Blackwell (trumpet), Don Cherry (trumpet, cornet), Sunny Murray (drums), Gary Peacock (bass), Roswell Rudd (trombone), John Tchicai (saxophone, alto sax). Michael Snow is a Canadian national treasure, a true Renaissance man. He assembled a stellar group to improvise a sound track for his art film, titled Walking Woman, featuring a silhouette that is rumored to have been inspired by Carla Bley. Digitally remastered. Manufactured in the USA by the original label. New digipak format. "This is a very interesting set, music that was freely improvised and used as the soundtrack for the 34-minute short film New York Eye and Ear Control. Tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler leads the all-star sextet (which also includes trumpeter Don Cherry, altoist John Tchicai, trombonist Roswell Rudd, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray) on two lengthy jams. The music is fiery but with enough colorful moments to hold one's interest throughout." --Scott Yanow, AllMusic
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LP
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ESPDISK 1020LP
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2015 repress. ESP-Disk's vinyl edition of this classic 1965 blowout by free jazz icon Albert Ayler restores the original front-cover art. 50th Anniversary Remaster from the original tape. On this Judson Hall session (ESP used the empty concert hall as their "studio," its reverberation adding to the bigness of the sound) both Ayler's playing and his new band's sound even more intense than before, the parts of the players sometimes only loosely related. Some defended it as an energetic ensemble style harkening back to the early days of New Orleans jazz in its intertwining of independent lines; it came to be called "energy music" and started a movement that was quickly joined by Frank Wright and that continues in the playing of Charles Gayle, Sabir Mateen, and Peter Brötzmann. Albert Ayler, tenor saxophone; Donald Ayler, trumpet; Charles Tyler, alto saxophone; Sunny Murray, drums; Call Cobbs, harpsichord; Henry Grimes, Gary Peacock, basses. Recorded Sept. 23, 1965, at Judson Hall, New York City.
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CD
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ESPDISK 1016CD
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2023 reprint. It isn't strictly an Albert Ayler album but a very interesting collaborative freely improvised soundtrack project for Michael Snow's film of the same name. Recorded in July 1964 by Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray. Liner notes, photos and more -- digitally remastered from the original tapes. Michael Snow, the Toronto based film maker and pianist and catalyst for free improvisational performers everywhere; painter, sculptor and record producer, and the pride of Canada, used the image of pianist-composer Carla Bley as the inspiration for ah art film, Ny Eye & Ear Control. For his sound track, he assembled a group of ESP artists in his loft, and recorded them on July 17, 1964.
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CD
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ESPDISK 4035CD
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Originally recorded in 1964. Featured artists: Albert Ayler (tenor saxophone); Sunny Murray (percussion); Gary Peacock (bass); Don Cherry (cornet). A legendary recording by tenor saxophonist Ayler with his amazing working band, recorded in Holland for radio play, here digitally remastered with new artwork.
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CD
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ESPDISK 1020CD
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Live recording of Albert Ayler's large septet configuration, featuring brother Donald, Charles Tyler, Sunny Murray and both Henry Grimes and Gary Peacock on bass. Compared to the bare trio of Spiritual Unity, this nearly big band of two bass players and a strong horn section allows Ayler's expressive vision depth from the joyous to the aggressive in Ayler's five original compositions. The digitally remastered recording was originally made at 30 ips instead of the usual 15 giving it excellent fidelity.
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2CD
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ESPDISK 4025CD
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A live recording of Albert Ayler’s May 1st, 1966 performance at Slugs Saloon, this two disc set features fresh takes on old favorites, such as “Ghosts” and “Bells”, and finds the seasoned quintet in stellar form, marching its way through Ayler’s distinctive brand of major triad melodic harmony to the greatest heights of individual expression and group improvisation. Please note that other recent reissues of this date, by Fruit Tree and Lone Hill, are neither authorized by the Ayler Estate, nor -- in the case of the latter -- musically complete. Featuring: Albert Ayler: tenor saxophone; Donald Ayler: trumpet; Michel Samson: violin; Lewis Worrell: string bass; Ron Jackson: percussion.
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CD
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ESPDISK 4001CD
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When Albert Ayler's band went through Customs in July 1970 on their way to play at a festival in France, keyboardist Call Cobbs got held back and arrived a day late. Minus the keyboards, the band played anyway. The music-making of the resulting ensemble is freer and more adventurous than on the quintet's following Maeght Foundation concerts. This unique document, Ayler's penultimate recording, thus brings him back to something close to the trio setting in which he first found fame on 1964's epochal Spiritual Unity (though, on Live on the Riviera, with Mary Maria adding occasional vocals and, once, another sax). Exactly four months later, Ayler's body would be found in the East River. ESP-Disk's 50th Anniversary Remaster brings the seminal free-jazz saxophonist's last unfettered blast of expression back into print after several years out of the catalog.
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viewing 1 To 20 of 20 items
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