Albert Ayler's short but definitive album
Bells covers about 20 minutes of music from his legendary Town Hall/N.Y.C. concert on May Day of 1965. It is not surprising to hear the angst and anguish in their music, considering it was made about five weeks after Black nationalist leader
Malcolm X was assassinated.
Ayler and his quintet blow their own horns in alert of the "new thing" in jazz coming on strong, with no apologies as to its fierce intent or audacious stance. Brother/trumpeter
Donald Ayler and alto saxophonist
Charles Tyler join with the tenor saxophonist in a united front of sound and steel forged reserve in making free jazz a reality. The back cover has a reprint of
Dan Morgenstern's
Down Beat Magazine review of the performance, which is insightful, fair, accurate, and to the point, a good read for anyone who might dismiss
Ayler's concept as something other than serious. The first of the two spontaneous compositions contains an outburst by the whole ensemble, followed by trumpet and tenor sax solos that bend notes and shapes in the extreme abstract. A free bop-based mid-section shows recording flaws, as drummer
Sunny Murray and bassist
Lewis Worrell are barely audible.
Tyler's alto is drenched in the loud and abrasive tone the
Ayler's dictated, but shows he has his own voice. The overtone-soaked music is tempered by a low-level bass solo from
Worrell, with
Murray's spare, splashy cymbal inserts, ending with a bouncy but eventual whirling dervish coda. The second, much longer improvisation, is based on
Ayler's
"Holy Ghost" theme, as a soulful, singing, vibrato-driven
Ayler ignites
Worrell via
Murray's signature triple and quadruple flam accents. There's a clarion march theme repeated before and after congealed chaos, followed by deconstructed but distinct melodies, albeit brave and uncompromising. When all three of these horn players blow hard and strong together, it brings to mind
Amiri Baraka's comment about "a terrible wholeness," as this purposefully saturated music stands alone as the most singularly unique early creative statement in modern music. As
Albert Ayler recorded several definitive recordings before or after this one, and due to the very short length of
Bells, it cannot be considered a magnum opus. But it does contain music played by his most powerful unit, a small window into the mind and heart of the most iconic maverick in the free jazz movement, and a magnet for discussion that lingers on well past his death. ~ Michael G. Nastos
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