albert ayler & don cherry - vibrations

though billed as a duet, really this is the third "major" album albert ayler recorded... as well as his third in 1964, a banner year that also included witches and devils and the amazing, sadly out of print spiritual unity. but vibrations is its own album, and ayler is the key

as with spiritual unity, vibrations includes two versions of ayler's theme song, "ghosts", which is never played the same way twice. the first is an off tempo statement of the theme, while the second is a more complete excursion... especially spotlighting cherry and bassist gary peacock and drummer sonny murray. all of the band, like ayler, is into playing things more for emotion than continuity, but there's more to this music than just passionate cacophony...

that was ayler's key, you see. he had the ability to come up with very straightforward new orleans-sounding sonny rollins styled tunes... then put them through the ringer. by the time the song was played, ayler was vibrating like the holy ghost, and the rest of the band rattled on in the same tune-bending style. the result is a catchy song unlike anything you've ever heard, and an overall mesh of feeling that makes tracks like "mother" and "children" feel personal... you can hear sex, religion, anger, everything behind this saxophone. but you can also hear great tunes. thiry four years later this album has still not received the recognition it deserves. help be one that makes that forthcoming!



personnel:
albert ayler - tenor saxophone
don cherry - trumpet
gary peacock - bass
sunny murray - drums

tracklisting:
01 ghosts (2:04)
02 children (6:50)
03 holy spirit (8:29)
04 ghosts (7:58)
05 vibrations (4:55)
06 mothers (7:06)


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get the album
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