| Of course I also want to listen to Don Cherry, who plays trumpet
on this album and whose style complements Ayler's by standing at
a right angle to it. Cherry, even at his loudest, has a delicate,
feathery touch; his best phrases breeze right past you, and catching
them before they're gone is half of the fun. I want to listen to
Sunny Murray, too, Ayler's drummer for this session ("session" being
a wholly accurate term here: the songs are sequenced in the order
in which they were recorded); all snare and ride cymbal, Murray is
a free jazz Jedi Knight, listening and responding to what's going
on around him exactly like a dancer trying, and succeeding, to keep
up with a constantly shifting beat. Even at his most aggressive,
Murray is all nuance, which to my ears is some of the point of the
whole free jazz enterprise: trust the themes to take care of themselves,
dwell long and hard on the sparks that fly off of them and see what
happens. |