18. the Far-Ranging 19605
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18. The Far-Ranging 19605 n the 1960s, rock ' n roll sought to create jazz that had and Motown were more to say. I monopolizing popular He was a world leader in music. The big jazz bands of the free jazz movement ofthe the 1930s and '40s and the 1960s, but Ayler's early singers of the '50s had faded influences offered little or no from the public consciousness. indication of his eventual It was a critical time for jazz. experiments in unstructured Jazz had not been the world's music. most popular music for almost Born in Cleveland July 13, two decades and seemed to be 1936, Ayler was raised by almost lost in the cross-fire of Edward and Myrtle Ayler in other forms of musical Shaker Heights. He grew up entertainment. in a very musical atmosphere. Some artists, who viewed Cleveland Press I CSU Archives He said his father played jazz as an almost straight-line Albert Ayler violin and a Dexter Gordon- evolutionary process, tried to style saxophone. "When I extend it in a variety of directions, sometimes with was two," recalled Albert, "I used to blow foot stool. disastrous results. Others, rejecting the need to expand, My mother told me I'd hold it up to my mouth and blow reverted to earlier styles of jazz. The result was a as if it were a horn." When his father played Lionel fragmentation of jazz which, in turn, diminished its Hampton records, Albert would mimic the musicians. general popularity. Jazz had moved from the Edward decided to teach his son to play alto sax. Albert mainstream of popularity into a much more exclusive recalled, "I'd play duets with him at church." area of popular culture. Like the battle between bebop According to Jeff Schwartz' book Albert Ayler: His and swing in the 1940s, jazz found itself split, not into Life and Music, Edward Ayler insisted that his son just two competing philosophical camps - but many. practice, even beating him at times when Albert refused The evolutionists delved into hard-bop, neo-bop, free to practice and wanted to be out on the street with the jazz, and a variety of other styles, all seeking the next other kids. Years later, Ayler remembered, "I'd be step in an evolutionary process. In reaction, other jazz playing a ballad and my father would say, ' Get back to artists reverted to the earlier styles ofNew Orleans and the melody. Stop playing that nonsense! '" swing and tried to improve on what had been done Ayler was taught music by his father until he was ten earlier in those styles. years old. Then, he went to Benny Miller' s Music Through this sometimes awkward and confusing Academy at East 105th and Superior. He continued period, a number of artists from Cleveland were still studying with Miller until he was 18. Ayler later said he making substantial contributions to the many faces of was influenced at the time by some surprisingly jazz. traditional musical models - Lester Young and Sidney Bechet. He said he was "crazy about Bechet." Albert Ayler's controversial art At John Adams High School, Ayler played first alto If you had never heard Clevelander Albert Ayler in the school orchestra, doubled on the oboe, and before, you might wonder if he were really a musician or demonstrated a photographic memory for musical simply trying to perpetrate a musical joke on his scores. He was also a champion high school golfer. audience. He sometimes sounded like a child making his first attempts to get sounds out of the saxophone. He Bobby Few and Ayler blew honks, growls and shrieks. He twisted and shoved One of Ayler' s boyhood friends was Bobby Few, them almost into submission. He sounded like a musical later an important j azz pianist in Europe. Few recalled, Jackson Pollack pouring paint from a ladder onto his "Albert and I used to play baseball together, along with canvas. But a few minutes later, Ayler would string his brother, Don Ayler (six years older than Albert). together a long run ofperfectly enunciated notes and you When we were in high school, we played music for would suddenly realize he was a very capable technician. cabaret parties and strip-tease shows. I remember very In fact, Ayler was a formally trained musician. well playing the blues with Albert. He was a very good Ayler, who marched to a distinctively different blues artist at that time." drummer, once said bebop was too simple. He said it At 15, Ayler was playing saxophone with Lloyd was "like humming along with Mitch Miller." He Pearson and his Counts ofRhythm. The boys listened to 172 Cleveland Jazz History records by such classic jazz artists as Lester Young, let Ayler sit in with his group. Wardell Gray, Charlie Parker and Cleveland trumpeter Accepting those childish honks, growls and shrieks as Freddie Webster. They also went to Cleveland jazz clubs a deliberate part of his art, some critics in retrospect have to catch live performances of such artists as Illinois said Ayler' s music expressed his point of view during a Jacquet and RedPrysock. One night, at Gleason's, Albert troubled period of our history. During the "Black Is met blues singer and harmonica player Little Walter Beautiful" and "Black Power" movements ofthe turbulent Jacobs who had played with Chicago blues legend Muddy 1960s, it may have been Ayler's way of asserting black Waters. Little WaIter asked Ayler, while he was still in identity, of rebelling against established standards oftaste high school, to join his touring blues group. Ayler's and acceptability. In that historical context, some critics father remembered, "When he got the job, he was so said Ayler's music had meaning as art. excited he could hardly believe it. He came running McLarney said Ayler, when he was in college, had a home shouting, 'They're gonna take me with 'em! beard with a white patch and often wore an expensive They're taking me! " leather suit. "He had a scar on his throat that I was told Ayler toured with Little Walter' s rhythm and blues was inflicted with a knife. He was usually in the group during the summers of 1952 and ' 53. Blues artist company of his brother Donald." Robert Lockwood, Jr., who later settled in Cleveland, recorded with Little Walter. Despite the excitement of Ayler joins the Army touring, young Ayler was not happy with the life style. He left college in 1956 and went in the Army. When When he came home, he played with Lloyd Price and Ayler was stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, he played became familiar with the rougher side ofCleveland life. in Army bands and jammed with Stanley Turrentine and He spent a lot of time at a barbershop where the local other musical free-thinkers. "The commanding officer pimps congregated. He acquired a reputation that would of the Army band," remembered Ayler, "would say continue for the rest of his life as a wild dresser and about my playing, ' He' s insane. Don't talk to him. Stay womanizer. He began wearing brightly colored leather away from him! '" suits that became his trademark. While he was in the Army, Ayler became bored with the bebop style of Parker and decided to switch from Ayler at John Carroll University alto to tenor saxophone. In a 1966 interview in When Ayler graduated from John Adams High School DownBeat magazine, Ayler said, "It seemed to me that in 1954 at the age of 18, he began attending on the tenor you could get out all the John Carroll University in nearby feelings of the ghetto. On that horn, you University Heights. At the time, Ayler was can shout and tell the truth." That was really more interested in studying the perhaps a strange statement from a young bebop jazz style ofCharlie Parker. He met man who was not a product of a ghetto. Bird in Cleveland in 1955 and said, "I saw He was raised in the upper middle class the spiritual quality in the man." Albert and racially-integrated Cleveland suburb said, "He looked at me, smiled, and shook of Shaker Heights. my hand. 1 was impressed by the way he In early 1959, Ayler was reassigned by played the changes." Others said Ayler the Army to France. He frequently went was soon imitating Parker and some local to Paris jazz clubs and began absorbing musicians began calling him "Little Bird." the then-new jazz of John Coltrane who Some said Ayler would warm up by was recording with Miles Davis and playing Parker solos backward. Thelonious Monk. "To listen to While Ayler was in college, classmate Coltrane," said Ayler, "was just like he William McLarney recalled Albert would was talking to me, saying, 'Brother, get go to the Club 100 and the Esquire Lounge yourself together spiritually. '" Beaver at 105th and Euclid where jazz musicians Lewis, who served in the Army with Ace Carter, Bill Gidney, Roland Kirk and Ayler, said, "After hearing Coltrane, Eddie Baccus were playing. He told the Albert felt there was something missing in musicians he had been studying "Arabian his music and he wanted to fmd whatever music." Many of the musicians did not that was." want Ayler to sit in with them. After Also in France, Ayler was influenced listening to his unstructured honks and by another unlikely source, the French howls, some musicians derisively called National Anthem. He called it "La Ayler "Bicycle Horn." Occasionally, Kirk Albert Ayler Mayonnaise" and later constructed several The Far-Ranging 1960s 173 compositions from its simple theme including "Infinite he didn't attract much attention here.