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Chris McGranaghan owned a record shop and label for many years (Those Old Records in Lichfield).Today, he's semi-retired and living near the sea in Northumberland, where he now hosts a radio show for Lionheart Radio.
In 'The Outer Limits', Chris explores a few artists/genres that are on or beyond the boundaries of Fruits de Mer...

Albert Ayler - The Holy Ghost

Dysfunctionality and Searching for the Truth

It would be fair to say that I have a complex relationship with the music of Albert Ayler. On a good day I will tell you why he is the most influential, soulful, and complex musician since John Coltrane or Duke Ellington and on a bad day, I will utter that he plays unlistenable rubbish. His music can be extremely difficult first time around and as someone who has been listening to him for 40+ years – it can difficult even today. So why bother? His music reminds me of my on/off relationship with Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica". Some albums seem promising but disappoint on closer listening. Beefheart and Ayler shared similarities: what seemed chaotic was actually carefully rehearsed and at times it sounds like a cacophony.

But Albert! Well, musically, all life is here, every emotion of man’s raging, tortured and sorrowful soul is laid before you like an autopsy table, and you can pick over the entrails. His saxophone screams and wails with rhythms that sound unsuited to the tune but in some way, actually work. The only thing you have to imagine are your own fears. Themes are not sugar coated, norms discarded, you think you know jazz well prepare to enter a very dark and mysterious world. This is music that demands attention, annoys, and soothes but never leaves you without an opinion. It can be hard to listen at times. His unique take on free jazz, boogaloo, nursery rhymes, marching bands (learned in the army), blues and rhythm and blues is either outrageously wonderful or a mish mash of unrelated themes. Albert struggled with how the jazz audience didn’t dig it, but he was not going to compromise just to please them. The truth is out there if you look for it, but you may not like what you find.

His music is free from a structured form; it can be a dense multi layered wall of sound that erupts and best listened to not as you would a normal album but whilst actively engaged in something else. Because of how intense it is, this kind of music rarely gets airtime on mainstream radio stations. Although he released numerous albums, the three that stand out to me are "Spiritual Unity," which was issued by ESP in 1965, and “Live in Greenwich Village" which is a CD collection, released by Impulse in 1998. The original of this was a single album released with a wonderful psychedelic sleeve in 1967. Finally, his last studio album “Music is the Healing Force of the Universe” released in 1970, sessions from those recordings were released posthumously in an album called “Last Album”

In 1964, Spiritual Unity was recorded for the newly founded ESP-Disk label, with Gary Peacock playing bass and Sonny Murray on drums. This was like nothing else ever released in the jazz canon and credit must go to Bernard Stollman who started the label to release Ayler’s music. John Coltrane was an enthusiastic fan; indeed, Albert Ayler played at Coltrane’s funeral, a piece that always reminds me of Hendrix doing the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock. You can find that clip on YouTube. Coltrane convinced his record label, Impulse, to sign him. However, Albert lacked business acumen, so his publishing rights were disorganized, and he never earned much money in the music business.


Live in Greenwich Village is full on, Albert Ayler live was something else. The level of intensity is incredible, and the band are as tight as his music demands. A highly intense album and probably not one for anyone to start listening to his music. The Holy Ghost set free.


His last album, Music is the Healing Force of the Universe, and some say that this was what he was always striving for. Vocals on the album are provided by his wife, Mary Maria Parks. You can sense the direction that his music was heading in a track like “Drudgery”, a rockier feel with electric guitar and a discernable beat (for once). It commands attention and is finally being recognized as one of his finest.


He struggled with mental health problems for most of his brief life, drowned (by his own hand) at the age of 34 and was laid to rest in Ohio. He leaves behind an unparalleled musical legacy, an uncompromising artist who defied all norms and did it his way. Yet, even today, I sometimes have to give his music a wide berth. However, when everything comes together perfectly there is no other artist that “speaks” to me like Albert Ayler, his music screams against everything and you’ll come out the other end a better person, albeit a tad confused.

Next time - Beefheart!

You can listen to Chris' radio show 'Influences' on Lionheart Radio