Sunday, July 22, 2012

The Jazz Thing, Round 1: Christian v. Ayler


The Jazz Thing, Round 1 (40 Word/Album Limit)


#87 "Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar" (1939-41) v. #39 the Albert Ayler Trio: "Spiritual Unity" (1964).


Conceivably a tough match. Charlie Christian is apparently a very early pioneer of the electric guitar. So, these tracks are early: close to jazz’s honky-tonk, Dixieland, and blues roots. That’s to say, not very interesting to listen to.


And:



This is “free jazz” ie., racket. But it grows on me. It starts with a theme like a high school fight song, and then Ayler takes it to the moon via the underworld. Crazy, noisy, passionate stuff. Not for everyone.


Spiritual Unity defeats The Genius of the Electric Guitar

3 comments:

Jennifer said...

I never noticed the 40 word per album limit before. Interesting....

Michael5000 said...

That is a self-imposed restriction that I devised to challenge myself and my writing, because I've observed that I have an occasional tendency to err, as it were, on the side of verbosity.

Dug said...

Any sound samples of these out there on the net? Yes I could probably find them myself but I'm theoretically working right now.