Holy Ghost is the first extended study of free jazz saxophonist
Albert Ayler, who is seen today as one of the most important innovators
in the history of jazz.
Ayler synthesized children's songs, La Marseillaise, American march
music, and gospel hymns, turning them into powerful, rambunctious,
squalling free-jazz improvisations. Some critics considered him a
charlatan, others a heretic for unhinging the traditions of jazz. Some
simply considered him insane. However, like most geniuses, Ayler was
misunderstood in his time. His divine messages of peace and love,
apocalyptic visions of flying saucers, and the strange account of the
days leading up to his being found floating in New York's East River are
central to his mystique, but, as Koloda points out, they are a
distraction, overshadowing his profound impact on the direction of jazz
as one of the most visible avant-garde players of the 1960s and a major
influence on others, including John Coltrane.
A musicologist and friend of Don Ayler, Albert's troubled
trumpet-playing brother, Richard Koloda has spent over two decades
researching this book. He follows Ayler from his beginnings in his
native Cleveland to France, where he received his greatest acclaim, to
his untimely death on November 25, 1970, at age thirty-four, and puts to
rest speculation concerning his mysterious death.
A feat of biography and a major addition to jazz scholarship, Holy
Ghost offers a new appreciation of one of the most important and
controversial figures in twentieth-century music.
