Albert Ayler Live in Europe: Found Free Jazz

Albert Ayler is, was and will remain the most important jazz player to emerge from Cleveland. There’ve been rock bands that approach his level of import, but those folks have gotten the proper amount of recognition for their contributions to music. When discussing the open and free minded jazz players of the sixties, Ayler, in Cleveland and outside of it, is often times forgotten amidst talks on Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and Don Cherry – the last of which Ayler recorded with in Europe.

All of that’s important, but what’s most immediately important to me is that I found a five dollar copy of Albert Ayler Live in Europe Reckless Records Milwaukee Ave. location in Chicago. No, the album isn’t actually fifty some odd years old. It was pressed in 1990 by a French label simply called Philology, which means the study of linguistics through the pinhole of history.

Some of these tracks have cropped up on The Copenhagen Tapes, The Berlin Concerts and that unruly nine disc boxed set of Ayler’s that was issued a few years back to universal acclaim. But having these recordings in the vinyl format makes any record collection just that much more respectable.

Flipping through any personal stash of records and finding hallmarks of taste is as important as good conversation – and sometimes better. How good is talk when you can listen to “Omega,” the final track on the second side of Live in Europe. While that song – still my favorite Ayler composition – isn’t turned in with the same panache as a few other live versions, it’s on what’s now one of my most highly prized albums.

The music Ayler turns in, should to a certain extent, be familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of the sax player. He didn’t have a tremendously long recording career, although, Ayler did make it into the studio a good many times. But the number of compositions that he played live, especially during his stint in Europe, isn’t tremendously varied. So, each song on Live in Europe is probably elsewhere collected in a different form. Whether or not these versions are better or worse is up to the individual mind of the listener. But what can be said is that these selections don’t (can’t) sound identical to other renditions.

When remembered, Ayler’s probably going to be referenced as a player who burnt out too quickly. And maybe his trip to Europe expedited that process. But at least there’s documentation of it all.