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| 1. | Invocation
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| 2. | Spirits
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| 3. | Truth Is Marching In
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| 4. | Saints
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| 5. | Bells [Live]
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Avant-Garde / Jazz
Avant-Garde Jazz
Structured Improvisation
Free Jazz
Recorded: Oct 27-28, 2004
Chad Taylor - Drums
Henry Grimes - Bass
Marc Ribot - Guitar, Producer
Roy Campbell - Pocket Trumpet, Trumpet
What is Spiritual Unity?
Spiritual Unity is a group formed by guitarist Marc Ribot dedicated to re-creating and re-imagining the music of the great saxophonist Albert Ayler, one of the pillars of modern jazz. Ribot (Lounge Lizards, Los Cubanos Postizos and countless other bands) is a longtime fan of Ayler’s who has spent years listening to and internalizing the communicative group process integral to Ayler’s music. Ribot describes playing Ayler’s music as a “ritual process, through improvisation, of experiencing and presenting the rawest moment of musical creation.” He knew that the time had come to realize his long-time dream of forming a collective band to play this music when the celebrated bassist Henry Grimes, who played on many of Ayler’s seminal recordings from the 1960s, returned to the jazz scene in 2003.
Grimes’ amazing reemergence after 30 plus years away from music is now one of the great stories in the annals of jazz. Spiritual Unity is just the second release and the first studio recorded release to feature him since his return. This recording, for those who haven’t had the good fortune to see Grimes play live, finds him playing as strong as ever. He is obviously the perfect bassist for this music. Ribot displays his obvious passion for this music. His playing ranges widely from delicate beauty to wails and shrieks and everything in between. Trumpeter Roy Campbell exhibits his incredible versatility. He sports his free jazz hat and delivers the combination of lyricism and whomp that he brings to every musical context. Drummer Chad Taylor (Chicago Underground Trio) plays with muscle and verve, propelling this difficult music forward.
Spiritual Unity features one original by Ribot and four compositions by Ayler. Ribot’s “Invocation” opens the album and immediately conjures Ayler’s spirit. This is followed by “Spirits,” one of Ayler’s catchiest and instantly recognizable tunes. “Truth is Marching In,” another of Ayler’s signature tracks, featuring a long, mournful intro that suddenly breaks into a warped march. The spacious “Saints” bridges to the album closer “Bells,” a 15 minute tour-de-force recorded live at Tonic the night before the studio session.
Spiritual Unity could easily be overshadowed by comparisons to Ayler’s original work, but the intentions far exceed a straightforward canonization of Ayler’s music. Using Ayler’s vocabulary as raw material, Ribot, Grimes, Taylor and Campbell combine their disparate influences to fashion their own distinct work of art.
* Bill Mulvey - Engineer
* Dominik Huber - Photography
* Figureground - Package Design
* Francois Lardeau - Engineer
* Michael Fossenkemper - Mastering
* Seth Rosner - Executive Producer
* Yulun Wang - Executive Producer
Albert Ayler compositions have been in Marc Ribot's book for many years, so it shouldn't really be a surprise that he put together a band to play Ayler tunes. However, when Ribot started playing Ayler songs he couldn't have dreamed that he'd be playing them with Henry Grimes, the original bass player on a number of Ayler's seminal mid-'60s recordings (Grimes walked away from music in 1967 and remained out of sight until 2002). Rounding out the group are Roy Campbell on trumpet and Chad Taylor on drums and percussion.The album is called Spiritual Unity, but it's not a direct cover of Ayler's Spiritual Unity album. In fact, Ribot's band only tackles one song from that particular album, "Spirits." Actually, although they do play Ayler's music, the band's mission statement says it's not about performing the tunes by rote, it's about seeking "a ritual process, through improvisation." To that end, although it sounds remarkably like an Ayler tune, "Invocation" is actually a group improvisation offered before the Ayler material. When they do get to that material, they work much like Ayler's quartets did, moving quickly from the head into fiery collective improvisation. This is free jazz to be sure, but Ayler's free jazz was grounded in marches and gospel music and those elements can come to the surface even during the roiling improvisations. Henry Grimes is remarkable. His ideas never seem to slow down and it's nearly incomprehensible that he didn't touch a bass for three decades. Chad Taylor has long been known as a supportive drummer and Ribot and Campbell's work probably needs no introduction. They operate here as a unit, not a collection of soloists, and they honor Ayler's musical process as much as the man or his compositions. Ayler's time on earth was far too short, but Ribot and company show that this music still lives on in the present moment, not simply as a relic of the past. Spiritual Unity isn't for the timid, but Ayler fans will find a lot to enjoy.
---Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide
Marc Ribot
Active Decades: '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: 1954 in Newark, NJ
Genre: Avntg; Jazz
Styles: Avant-Garde, Avant-Garde Jazz, Cuban Jazz, Experimental, Experimental Rock, Film Music, Jazz-Rock, Post-Punk
Eclectic guitarist Marc Ribot has recorded a wide variety of music over his career, working with Elvis Costello and on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs. He has also recorded compositions for classical guitar by Haiti's Franz Casseus, a friend of his parents, and has participated actively in New York City's downtown avant-garde music scene for some time, most notably as a member of the Lounge Lizards. Ribot's solo albums include Rootless Cosmopolitans and Requiem for What's His Name; later Ribot worked with his avant-garde jazz-rock fusion band, Shrek, whose eponymous debut was released in 1994. With a new group, Los Cubanos Postizos, he also issued The Prosthetic Cubans in 1998; Muy Divertido followed two years later. Additionally, Ribot played a major part in initiating the Radical New Jewish Culture Festival in Germany and New York City. Since that time, he has released a bevy of recordings including, among others, Muy Divertido! in 2000, Scelsi Morning in 2003, Asmodeus: The Book of Angels, Vol. 7 in 2007, and Party Intellectuals in 2008.
---Steve Huey, All Music Guide |
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