Search - Albert Ayler :: Slugs Saloon

Sound Quality Good Enough, Music Quality FANTASTIC--Get it!

William C. Piper II | Pennington, NJ United States | 03/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The audiophiles who've given this title lukewarm reviews may have somewhat of a point (on par with vinyl back in the day), but the music, qua music, on these discs is the first rate Albert Ayler one expects. Fortunately, I'd heard some of these tracks on Princeton's radio station and knew not to be put off by the audiophiles' griping (thank you Wil Constantine, however you're spelled). With Ayler's bigger band from the Village Vanguard sessions and two trio CD's in my collection, this ensemble was exactly what I was looking for to fill out my Ayler box. The Vanguard work, in itself masterful and dizzying in its musicianship and spiritual power, tends at times to obscure the individual contribution of each instrument, which this quintet ensemble brings into sharper relief. I personally prefer Ayler as he appears on this CD: with Donald Ayler's trumpet and with the violin. Albert mixes and blends voices so astoundingly with trumpet they become nearly indistinguishable before each rockets off on his own cry of pain or ecstasy, and the violin seems to hang like some scarf of a twisting and warped dimension through which all the rest of the yearning and admonishing and protesting and praising voices find "local habitation and a name." It's eerie and weird and totally cool.



As a bonus, you'll get liner notes that are among the best available on the meaning of jazz on Ayler's side of the coin he shares with Anthony Braxton. Just buy it. Enjoy it."

5-star performance mangled by poor sound.

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 12/01/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

""At Slug's Saloon" is one of those pieces that's sort of difficult to grapple with-- it's the only document of this particular formation of Albert Ayler's band, it's a critically powerful live performance, but it's sound quality is poor enough to effect the listening experience. Nonetheless, there's enough worthwhile reasons to pursue this recording for the devoted.



Ayler, performing exclusively on tenor sax at this point in his career, is joined by his brother Don on trumpet, violinist Michel Sampson, bassist Lewis Worrell and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. This is the only recorded evidence of Jackson's tenure in Ayler's band, and his work is exciting and dynamic. Perhaps more naturally a fit for Ayler than the great Sunny Murray was, Jackson can freely associate with the leader, can provide the sort of implied beat patterns that Murray did, but is also willing to dig deep into New Orleans tradition to coax out the sort of rolling marching beats that can match Ayler's themes. Ayler's music by this point was deep in march and gospel tradition, with themes being stated by either himself or his brother, interchanged, and explored-- these provide a foundation for improvisation, sometimes one horn will stick with the theme while the other cuts loose, sometimes the group will collectively improvise. It's tough to see the roll of Sampson and Worrell during ensemble playing as you have to strain to hear Sampson and Worrell is nearly inaudible.



Still, it's an engaging picture-- Ayler runs through about ten themes performed in continuous succession-- sometimes themes are stated, then another is stated immediately after, sometimes they're reprised, all in all it's really quite intriguing. The play throughout is fantastic-- clearly the band was having an 'on' night. Also nice to see is that this reissue contains all the material from the show.



But the sound is sketchy, and with the strings hard to hearmuch of the experience is missing. Also of note is that ESP-Disk apparently was not able to restore some of the pieces to their full length-- some of the tracks fade out during the performance. This is extraordinarily disappointing as the ESP-Disk reissues have all been so superb. Still, its a distinct improvement over the previous releases, and certainly its a nicer package, with a superb cover photo of the band in front of Slug's and a new bizarrely associative set of liner notes (all of the research for which seems to have been done online), but I have a hard time rationalizing anything higher than 3 stars for a bootleg-quality release."

Uplifting stuff

Jessamine | Free, USA | 02/17/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Recorded live at Slugs' Saloon on May 1st, 1966 the album is similar in feel and delivery to "Greenwich Village" as well as "Lörrach, Paris." In my opinion, it is a little more frenetic in feel than these other two releases, and the most striking difference is that imparted by Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums. Stylistically his drumming is quite a contrast to Sunny Murray's and somewhat different from Beaver Harris's as well. Often Jackson seems to drum "with" the melody, and his drumming is in some ways more "march-like" which obviously suits these pieces well. He doesn't really keep a strong beat per se but the drums are certainly more aggressive. I think I prefer the sorts of things that Sunny Murray brought to the mix, as well as the template that Beaver Harris would provide later in 1966, but this is still a very enjoyable album. Albert and company were really at the height of their powers during this time period. If you can get past the sound quality, which really isn't hard, this is wonderful stuff."