Landmark Jazz Album #16 - Spiritual Unity - Albert Ayler Trio (ESP - Disk)

Ayler (ts), Gary Peacock (b) and Sunny Murray (d). Rec. 1964

Ayler made a couple of revolutionary records in Europe two years prior to this but the first ESP-Disk was the one that made the breakthrough in terms of reaching out and changing absolutely everything. The sheer wildness of Ayler’s sound, execution and ideas (hysterical trilling way above the normal range of the saxophone combined with body-blow honks and sonic booms from its very depths) was unprecedented, as was the frenetic free-rhythm accompaniment from Peacock and Murray. It was only later that his musical forms were grasped and understood. On release, the record changed every conception of what constituted cutting-edge jazz overnight and unleashed generations of imitators. But Albert did it first, and did it best.

Credits: KS