Healing Force: The Songs of Albert Ayler. –New New Grass/Message from Albert”; –Music is the Healing Force in the Universe”; –Japan>Universal Indians”; –A Man is like a Tree”; Oh! Love of Life”; –Thank God for Women”; –Heart Love”; –New Generation”; –New Ghosts/New Message.” Vinny Golia, Reeds. Aurora Josephson, voice. Henry Kaiser, guitar. Mike Keneally, piano, guitar, voice. Joe Morris, guitar, bass. Damon Smith, bass. Weasel Walter, drums. Liner notes by Henry Kaiser. 2007. Cuneiform Records. Rune 255.


Saxophonist and composer Albert Ayler was born in Cleveland in 1936. By the mid-1960s he had settled in New York and established himself as a major figure in free jazz. He worked as a sideman to Cecil Taylor, briefly co-led a group with Don Cherry, and played with John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, Bill Dixon, and Paul Bley, among others. Ben Ratliff's recent book on Coltrane documents Ayler's influence on Coltrane's later music. Ayler has also been the subject of a ten-CD box set Holy Ghost issued by revenant records in 2004, and as well, the subject of director Kaspar Collin's 2005 Swedish documentary film My Name Is Albert Ayler.