Albert Ayler Quartet: Copenhagen Live 1964

Albert Ayler Quartet: Copenhagen Live 1964

The program presented here is indicative of a customary set by the band, which is to say unlike any other music of the time. Ayler continues a practice of elemental one-word composition titles with pieces like the tender ""Mothers,"" itself a recasting of the old spiritual ""Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"". There, Ayler pulls out his vibrato stops from the start, drenching the audience in a warm current of matriarchally-minded pathos. Cherry acts as a strong cantilevering presence, anchoring Ayler's energy and interpolating his own freedom. It's as if the two have slipped the pinions of temporal order and entered their own private plane.

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