Off the Beatin' Path

Kasper Collin wants to guide you through the life of free-jazz innovator Albert Ayler.

by Shaun Brady

GETTING DOWN TO BRASS TRACKS: Albert Ayler (right) jamming with his brother, Donald. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

More than once in Kasper Collin's documentary My Name Is Albert Ayler, the titular saxophonist's voice is heard from beyond the grave insisting, "If people don't like it now, they will." Almost 40 years after the free-jazz innovator's body was found floating in New York's East River, his prediction seems to have come true to some extent. In 2004, the Revenant label issued a lavish nine-CD box set full of rare and unreleased recordings, and several tribute CDs have emerged in the past few years.

But unlike so many figures who have polarized listeners over the history of jazz, Ayler has never seemed to become more acceptable to mainstream ears. Outside of the most dogmatic Marsalis/Crouch acolytes, Coltrane's late recordings are by now seen as spiritual epics far more than undisciplined wailing, and even Ornette Coleman gets lifetime achievement awards. But Ayler, along with Cecil Taylor, has retained his ability to produce sheer terror in unsuspecting listeners. Some run away, never to look back; others, like Swedish filmmaker Collin, become fascinated and struggle to make sense of the music, its eventual rewards repaying open-eared diligence.

"I think I heard Albert's music for the first time early in the 1990s," Collin recalls. "It really stood out from everything else. I didn't know what to do with the music then, but it stayed with me deep inside somewhere."

Moving to Stockholm in the mid-'90s to study filmmaking, Collin discovered that Ayler had resided in the city for nearly a year in 1962. Wanting to learn more, he set out to research the saxophonist's life, but was frustrated at the lack of available information. In 1998 he began to work on a remedy to that, intending to make a short film solely focusing on Ayler's time in Sweden. Two years later, Collin discovered that Edward Ayler, the saxophonist's father, was still alive in Cleveland and happy to receive a call from Sweden.

"That was a very special thing for me," says Collin. "I realized how important Albert's stay in Sweden had been for him. He had a lot of positive memories from his time here, which he had told his family, friends and colleagues. So the fact that I was from Sweden opened the door for me a little bit."

Collin made the first of three Stateside trips shortly thereafter, still with the shorter project in mind. But when he arrived in Cleveland, Edward Ayler immediately introduced the filmmaker to Donald Ayler, Albert's brother and trumpet-playing sideman. A split with his brother led to a nervous breakdown, and his career was sidelined by mental illness for the remainder of his life (Donald Ayler died in October 2007). But Collin found a lucid, forthright Donald Ayler ("Psychotic," he says simply when asked about the problems he faces), with whom he hit it off, realizing there was more story to be told.

"From there the project developed quite a bit," he says. "I started to realize that this might be a longer journey than I had thought from the beginning. There was another film there that I had to make."

That film eventually took seven years to complete. The original project lives on within the larger framework, with perhaps an outsized focus on Ayler's Scandinavian adventure. But the scant footage and remembrances from those who knew him at this formative stage in his career are particularly revealing for those who see Ayler's sound as emerging fully formed on his ESP Disk recordings, produced after his return to the States.

That sound is perhaps Collin's most potent weapon. Raw, gut-bursting, pouring out of the saxophone as if vomited forth from the depths of its creator's soul, that unmistakable bellow is an inimitable combination of '60s free-jazz experimentation, Southern gospel fervor and field-holler exuberance. Not only does the film keep it always present, but actually has collaborators like Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray don headphones and react onscreen.

While Ayler's impact is constantly in evidence, his presence is more strongly felt via two discoveries Collin made during the process. One is a snippet from Michael Snow's 1964 film New York Eye and Ear Control, a shot of a shirtless Ayler staring into the camera. The second is a set of audio interviews conducted between 1963 and 1970, allowing much of the film to be narrated by its subject.

"The last interview was made in France just three months before he passed away," says Collin, "and it's kind of scary. It's almost like he was summarizing his life in one 30-minute monologue, which I find very haunting."

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

My Name Is Albert Ayler, Thu., March 6, 7 p.m., $5-$7, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, ihousephilly.org.