Revenant is planning big Albert Ayler box

[Jazzmoose]

Hmmm...maybe it wasn't misfiled!

Anyway, the box finally arrived about 15 minutes ago. The wife will be home any minute now, so I'm not going to try to listen to any of it at this point. But as I look at this stuff on my desk, all my mind can say is "what are you doing with this stuff, you dork! This should go to a real Ayler fan, not some neophyte like you! You better not get caught with this stuff; you don't deserve it!"

[JSngry]

Ssometimes the light finds us, sometimes we find the light. Just use it, and don't worry about how you found it.

Grasshopper.

[Guest Chaney]

Ssometimes the light finds us, sometimes we find the light. Just use it, and don't worry about how you found it.

Grasshopper.     

It's very clear that Mark was meant to own this set.

Neophyte? NEOPHYTE? This from the man who has bought Brotzmann?

You may not know Ayler but you're more more deserving ( ) and ready for this set than you may imagine.

ENJOY!

[JSngry]

I'll probably blow whatever "hipness quotient" I have by saying this, but I really do feel that Ayler is to Brotzmann what the Grand Canyon is to a pothole.

There - I've said it.

[brownie]

I'll probably blow whatever "hipness quotient" I have by saying this, but I really do feel that Ayler is to Brotzmann what the Grand Canyon is to a pothole.

There - I've said it.

The music in the box puts everything else back in its proper perspective!

Ayler as Grand Canyon, that suits me.

I caught Brotzmann live at the Comblain festival in Belgium back in 1967 (with Han Bennink and Peter Kowald) after hearing Ayler live in New York (and later in Paris). The experience was from two continents apart, so was the impact of the music.

I'm open to this music and like Brotzmann but I have to admit I am a bit surprised at the unabashed enthusiasm he raises!

[Guest Chaney]

(...)

but  you take yr Frank Wright, yr Glenn Spearman... yr Peter Brotzmann-- they take some parts from Albert & did their own thing w/it, to whatever extent they were (are for PB) able.

(...)

Which was the reason why I mentioned Brotzmann in the first place.

All things -- and talents -- in perspective, gentlemen. Depth of perspective varying from one person to the next, of course.

[JSngry]

What I really meant was that Ayler's music, like the Grand Canyon, is caught up in/with centuries (or more) of inexplicable natural forces. It's a bottomless pit of inexplicable mystery, yet for those to whom it speaks, it speaks deeply, perhaps at a level of "supra-consciousness". You can explain the Grand Canyon, but can you really understand it?

Brotzmann's music (and this is just how it hits me), like a pothole, is very much of this world and the people who inhabit it- the pressures, absurdities, and abuses of modern life seem to me to be at the root of it, and, also like a pothole, it's deliberately "annoying" quality is precisely the point of it - it exists to get our attention, to let us know in no uncertain terms that something's wrong and desperately needs fixing.

Now, when I was younger, the notion of going around looking for potholes and bringing them to everybody's attention was pretty damn appealing. But after a while (and after numerous front-end allignments and new shocks/struts), I kinda got to the point where I knew where all the potholes were, as well as knowing that as soon as you fixed one, sooner or later another one would show up, many times on the same street. Plus, I had pretty much learned all the ways to call them to people's attention. The whole pothole thing just got to be "old news", not because I no longer cared, but because, noble as the cause is, there's more to life than its absurdities. The reward was/is finite in scope, at least for me. Once you cash it in, what else is there?

But the Grand Canyon, man, I could look at that thing forever and never see the same thing twice. Or possibly even once!

Edited October 13, 2004 by JSngry

[JSngry]

Charles Tyler, by comparison was for, me a VERY interesting case;

Charles Tyler is my kinda player.

[jazzbo]

Yes, I only know Tyler from his work with Ayler, and his two ESPs. Wonderful stuff! GREAT player!

[John B]

What I really meant was that Ayler's music, like the Grand Canyon, is caught up in/with centuries (or more) of inexplicable natural forces. It's a bottomless pit of inexplicable mystery, yet for those to whom it speaks, it speaks deeply, perhaps at a level of "supra-consciousness". You can explain the Grand Canyon, but can you really understand it?

Brotzmann's music (and this is just how it hits me), like a pothole, is very much of this world and the people who inhabit it- the pressures, absurdities, and abuses of modern life seem to me to be at the root of it, and, also like a pothole, it's deliberately "annoying" quality is precisely the point of it - it exists to get our attention, to let us know in no uncertain terms that something's wrong and desperately needs fixing.

I was readying myself to type up a reply to your first Ayler vs. Brotz quote but, once I read this, I see where you are coming from. I still feel that the "pothole" language is unnecessarily denigrating, but, for the most point, I agree with your point.

I think you could say the same thing about the Trane on Interstellar Space (for example) vs. any number of other sax players operating within the same palette of sound.

[JSngry]

I could. I can. And I do.

[JSngry]

But just the ones who don't go anywhere with it.

[JSngry]

I still feel that the "pothole" language is unnecessarily denigrating...

Well, yes and no.

I mean, potholes aren't necessarily "good", but they exist. They're real as can be, as are the conditions that create them. Can't ignore them or deny that they're there. They are even, in an odd enough way, part of the "ugly beauty" that so many of us find ourselves surrounded by.

But like I said, after a while...

Edited October 13, 2004 by JSngry

[couw]

What I really meant was that Ayler's music, like the Grand Canyon, is caught up in/with centuries (or more) of inexplicable natural forces. It's a bottomless pit of inexplicable mystery, yet for those to whom it speaks, it speaks deeply, perhaps at a level of "supra-consciousness". You can explain the Grand Canyon, but can you really understand it?

Brotzmann's music (and this is just how it hits me), like a pothole, is very much of this world and the people who inhabit it- the pressures, absurdities, and abuses of modern life seem to me to be at the root of it, and, also like a pothole, it's deliberately "annoying" quality is precisely the point of it - it exists to get our attention, to let us know in no uncertain terms that something's wrong and desperately needs fixing.

Now, when I was younger, the notion of going around looking for potholes and bringing them to everybody's attention was pretty damn appealing. But after a while (and after numerous front-end allignments and new shocks/struts), I kinda got to the point where I knew where all the potholes were, as well as knowing that as soon as you fixed one, sooner or later another one would show up, many times on the same street. Plus, I had pretty much learned all the ways to call them to people's attention. The whole pothole thing just got to be "old news", not because I no longer cared, but because, noble as the cause is, there's more to life than its absurdities. The reward was/is finite in scope, at least for me. Once you cash it in, what else is there?

But the Grand Canyon, man, I could look at that thing forever and never see the same thing twice. Or possibly even once!

I think that Ayler's music is also just an exponent of its time. You may want to call the spiritual quest that everyone was dabbling with in those days a grand canyon when compared to the fast unfocussed frustrations of today, but that does not put it on a higher plane. Just a different one. Whereas the pothole seeks attention for reality and hammers on the need for finding personal solutions, the grand canyon actually offers a grand solution that is disassociated from reality and that does not address the problems themselves at all.

So yes, there is more to life than its absurdities, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it gets really boring looking for that pot if the road is paved yellow and there are no flying monkeys.

Personally, I think Ayler has a damn beautiful truth honking from his horn and Brötzel's is a damn lot uglier.

[JSngry]

I can go out in front of my house with a jackhammer and make a pothole in 30 minutes or less.

The Grand Canyon, on the other hand...

[JSngry]

I think that Ayler's music is also just an exponent of its time.

I dunno, man. I think it's pretty primordial myself.

[JSngry]

...the grand canyon actually offers a grand solution that is disassociated from reality and that does not address the problems themselves at all.

I think the Grand Canyon poses more questions than it answers. Perpetually.

I can't say that about a pothole - it asks a question that everybody already knows the answer to.

[JSngry]

So yes, there is more to life than its absurdities, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it gets really boring looking for that pot if the road is paved yellow and there are no flying monkeys.

Well of course. That's why it might be preferable to just ponder the rainbow itself.

Them flyin' monkies ain't no good!

[couw]

I can go out in front of my house with a jackhammer and make a pothole in 30 minutes or less.

The Grand Canyon, on the other hand...

other than that you are stretching your metaphor like a rubber band (it will snap back in your face any minute now ) life cannot only consist of awe for the unreachable. It is nice to take the journey to the grand canyon and find some stuff along the road, whether it shows in the end that you had what you found all along, is irrelevant really.

ain't that right Toto?

[JSngry]

life cannot only consist of awe for the unreachable.

Well of course not. That would be silly, to say nothing of impractical.

But thanks for caring!

[couw]

I'll be shaking my booty over some bouncing potholes now. I already know what they have to tell me and it's all just shallow commonplaces, but dang! shaking that booty till the canyon crumbles!

meanwhile, you may ponder the Tao of the Canyon, where once again absence is the essence.

[JSngry]

It's not that I dislike potholes, really. It's just that I know them well enough that they no longer hold a thrill, or a challenge, or anything else that would encourage me to continue being interested in them. There was a time, but as the song says, the thrill is gone...

I mean, they either get fixed or they don't. Once you realize that, you have a choice of forever agonizing over the ones that don't, or just getting on with everything else that can be done in the same time. You're going to live for as long as you're going to live, so choose wisely.

[JSngry]

I'll be shaking my booty over some bouncing potholes now.

Well there you have it - you can shake your booty with the assistance of a pothole, or that of some James Brown records.

The choice is obvious, I'd think!

Edited October 13, 2004 by JSngry

[JSngry]

...you may ponder the Tao of the Canyon, where once again absence is the essence.

Absence is a myth. Even nothing is something.

[couw]

...you may ponder the Tao of the Canyon, where once again absence is the essence.

Absence is a myth. Even nothing is something.

only on a system level. nothing defines something (and v.v.) and thereby becomes something only on a higher scale. Nothing is often as important as the something it defines and is defined by. IOW, I'm glad there's room for beer in my bottle.