Spiritual Unity

Spiritual Unity

ASIN: B000027953

Track Listings

1. Ghosts [First Variation]

2. Wizard

3. Spirits

4. Ghosts [Second Variation]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This clocks in at only 29:31, but I guarantee you won't spend a more intense half-hour in your life. Basically an accomplished R&B and gospel tenor player (think of the sax break on James Brown's "Cold Sweat"), Albert Ayler began investigating the new freedom of the '60s with a monumentally expressive emotional range and an enormous blowtorched sound like the wailing babble of a thousand parishioners speaking in tongues. Hearing him try to play chord changes on some early Danish recordings is a stretch, but on this 1964 session, he perfected his basic improvisational approach and created a masterpiece. His most famous theme, "Ghosts," a sing-songy chant, is reprised twice here, proceeding from the folkish theme to airborne recitatives. Ayler achieves a heartbreaking tone on "Spirits" with a wide, almost operatic vibrato, while the collective eruptions on "The Wizard" suggest a Jackson Pollack painting come to life. Virtuoso bassist Gary Peacock provides quicksilver harmonic contrasts that are appropriately ambiguous, while maverick drummer Sunny Murray elicits a ghostly rise and fall of percussive textures--together they lend an almost impressionistic air to these impassioned freedom prayers. --Chip Stern

Product Description
Reissue of the legendary free jazz saxophonist's first albumfor the ESP label, originally released in 1964. Ayler was the first artist signed to the label & their first release was 'Spiritual Unity', which highlights his 1964-65 recordings with Gary Peacock & Sunny Murray. Four tracks. Each of the 1,000 numbered copies pressed up for this limited edition release comes in a miniaturized LP sleeve with the original cover art intact. 1998 Get Back Records release.

Spiritual Unity,Albert Ayler,Get Back Italy,Avant-Garde,Avant-Garde Jazz,Free Jazz,Jazz,Pop

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A correction to even further validate this recording

Even an Olympic swimmer might not like the Ocean

As The Spirit Moves

Amazing

Ignore the one star review by Blaster Death

Spiritual Unity
Albert Ayler
Manufacturer: Esp Disk Ltd.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music
General | Jazz | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B0007Z9RAC
Release Date: 2005-03-15

Tracks:

Ghosts: First Variation
The Wizard
Spirits
Ghosts: Second Variation

Customer Reviews:

A correction to even further validate this recording.......2007-01-30

The reviewer "El Lagarto" may want to note that the release date of John Coltrane's "Ascension," his first proper free jazz album and first major foray into the avant-garde, is June 28, 1965. "Spiritual Unity" precedes that album by approximately a year, and if I am not mistaken, Coltrane cited Ayler as an influence which helped vault him into his late period recordings.

This recording is a masterpiece and must have been a revelation at the time to all with open ears. For an even more complete and brilliant document of Ayler's influential sound and immense presence, check out the Complete Greenwich Village recordings on Impulse! That is all for now.

Even an Olympic swimmer might not like the Ocean.......2006-07-29

This album skipped a few (hundred?) decades and took jazz straight to its logical conclusion. Fast forward several million years, far past our own epoch in this particular cosmic cycle, and you will hear this album playing as the universe dissipates back into its perfectly entropic state.

Don't get me wrong, this is not an album I listen to often. You wouldn't really play it in the car or at a party (unless it's a REALLY good party). This one takes some acclimation...like astronaut camp.

Yeah it's noisy and chaotic, but make no mistake: there is DEFINITELY music here. It's amazing that you can even hear it, let alone that someone actually wrote it, but it's here. Use with caution. This album will liberate your mind and incite a riot in your head, if you let it.

As The Spirit Moves.......2006-07-22

Certain albums seemed destined to capture the public's imagination and win widespread, unequivocal acceptance almost instantaneously. One thinks, for example, of Tapestry by Carole King, Rumors from Fleetwood Mac, and the Johnny Cash landmark effort, At Folsom Prison.

Others, like Brilliant Corners (Thelonious Monk) and Sail Away (Randy Newman) required time, tireless advocacy on the part of convinced music critics, and risk-taking listeners before assuming the iconic status they enjoy today.

Spiritual Unity, which may be Albert Ayler's Guernica, falls into neither category. It was born in obscurity where it has lived ever since, like a prisoner whose slim hopes are sustained only by infrequent visits from family members.

Jazz listeners are a small subset of all music listeners, but jazz itself is a big tent covering various splinter groups. There are those who believe that the sun set on real jazz when Sidney Bechet died. The majority of jazz lovers consider the WWII big band years of Basie and Ellington to be the halcyon era. Hipsters and flipsters latched onto Bop, but many, including Cab Calloway, rejected Bird and Diz. Cab Calloway called Bop "Chinese music."

The herd of jazz enthusiasts was culled even further by the arrival of John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and others who expressed a wanton disregard for melodic traditions. For many, Coltrane's squawks, squeals, and rapid fire scales were indistinguishable from underwater parachuting - an idea whose time hasn't come. However, Coltrane's disciples followed him and followed the horn players he influenced, like Roland Kirk. By now the herd, though fiercely loyal, was tiny. Then came Ayler.

Ayler blew with maniacal intensity, passion, delirious joy, and complete disrespect for the past. He played as though he'd never heard anyone else play, as if he'd discovered a horn in the desert and was single-handedly inventing music. Ayler did not play from his head or even his heart but directly from his soul. In jazz clubs around Manhattan cries of, "Check please," and, "I think I hear my mommy calling me," and, "Oops, this is my stop," rang out like chimes, followed soon thereafter by hasty retreats.

In a sense, Ayler took abstract jazz to its absolute breaking point; it really can't get much further out than this without sounding like jets warming up on a runway. His music defies evaluation, it even defies judgment. Almost everyone hates it and would pay to not have to hear it. Those who love it, as I do, respond to a spiritual awakening and freedom transcending the bars and dots on sheet music, pointing straight to the next world. For me, this is astonishing, glorious music, but then, I'm in a small herd.

Amazing.......2006-05-13

This album changed the way I hear music. Absolutely amazing. Every time I listen I hear something new.

Ignore the one star review by Blaster Death.......2005-12-19

Blaster Death should stick to reviewing Kenny G albums if he can't hear music on this recording. Not only should Spiritual Unity be placed in the top 100 jazz albums of all time I would go as far as to place it in the top 10. Then again, if real art scares you perhaps you should stick with Kenny G.

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TRULY MAJESTIC
This is good stuff

Majesty
Aeoliah
Manufacturer: Oreade Music
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | New Age | Styles | Music

Meditation | New Age | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B00004S80N
Release Date: 2000-04-11

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Reverance
Inner Mountain Flame
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Majesty

Album Description

This highly inspired devotional and spiritual music was created for personal transformation, meditation, new age healing centres, and places of worship. The pieces on this recording evoke the majestic Presence and Reality of our higher Nature, inspiring us with reverance and Divine Love. As you hear this music, please visualize the entire planet earth bathing in these celestial healing sounds, as this will accelerate the healing and enlightenment of our planet Earth.

Customer Reviews:

TRULY MAJESTIC.......2003-07-21

At the suggestion of a friend I purchased this CD, thinking it would not live up to its glowing recommendation. It was actually much better than I had anticipated.

This is good stuff.......2000-08-15

Very very meditative, find myself crying sometimes when i listen to it. Give it a shot, you'll like it.

Average customer rating:

Unity
The Spiritual Voices Featuring Keith "Wonderboy" Johnson
Manufacturer: World Wide Gospel
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music

Gospel | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music

Christian Contemporary Music | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B00094AR6O
Release Date: 2005-06-21

Tracks:

I Need A Blessin' - Keith Wonderboy Johnson
Time And Time Again - Keith Wonderboy Johnson
He Kept On Blessing Me - Keith Wonderboy Johnson
In Spite Of - Robert Holland
Too Good - Heze
He'll Make A Way - Nicko Harden
Trust Jesus - Stan Jones
Restore - Bo-Peep
My Soul Is Satisfied - Sean Scales
Gotta Right - Sean Scales
Brighter Days - The Brown Boyz
Wonderful - Keith Wonderboy Johnson
There's Not A Friend - The Spiritual Voices
I Got A Friend - The Spiritual Voices
Remember Me - The Spiritual Voices
Didn't Have To Bring Me Out - Bo-Peep
He Kept On Blessing Me (Ole Skool Mix - Alvin Green

Average customer rating:

If you like African American Spirituals you will love this one.

United We Sing

Manufacturer: Turtle Creek Chorale
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B00005YC0A
Release Date: 1995-01-24

Tracks:

N'Kosi Sikelel I'africa
Amen Siakadumisa
Betelehemu
Something Inside So Strong
Over My Head
Soon-Ah-Will Be Done
Keep Your Lamps
This Little Light of Mine
Hush, Hush
Little Innocent Lamb
Ring Dem Bells
Witness
Elijah Rock
Deep River
Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho
Balm in Gilead
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Rainbow Round My Shoulder
Hope for Tomorrow

Tracks:

Ride on King Jesus
Oh Mary, Don't You Weep
Psalm 133:1 Brethen in Unity
Holy Spirit
Available to You
I've Got Something This World Can't Take Away
Call Him Up
I'm a Testimony
Shadow of Your Wings
Make a Joyful Noise
Perfect Praise
Call Him Up (Reprise)

Customer Reviews:

If you like African American Spirituals you will love this one........2005-09-07

Large male chorus singing traditional African American spirituals with great harmony and arrangement.

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punk jazz
Been there
spitual unity
Spirits Rejoice.
Primal free jazz classics for a new century

Spiritual Unity
Marc Ribot
Manufacturer: Pi Recordings
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B0009298UW
Release Date: 2005-05-03

Tracks:

Invocation
Spirits
Truth Is Marching In
Saints
Bells

Album Description

"From crusty garage rock to graceful classical, sculpted white noise to sultry Afro-Cuban grooviness, the New York native is a master of myriad musical forms and a slave to none…nowhere in Ribot's discography is this more evident than on Spiritual Unity, an extraordinary tribute to the late free-jazz pioneer Albert Ayler." - SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY

Customer Reviews:

punk jazz.......2006-04-08

I sort of edged into this sideways - as a 40 something ex-punk (wait, I'm still a punk, scratch that ex part) - and musician (guitar, drums) I've long been on the lookout for inspired noise. Earlier a reviewer notioned that Captain Beefheart can be heard in some of this work - and I agree wholeheartedly. It's just good solid fun giving up the usual pop-song form to enjoy the pure sounds of instruments that dance with each other - but perhaps also, dance apart from one another.

I don't care who is the world's greatest guitar player. No truely Punk rock inspired person ever will - because it has nothing to do with being able to create brilliant and inspiring music. If Johnny Ramone could write songs with two barr chord forms (and let's face it, he could have had his hand broken and set in either an A or E barr form, and the ramones would not have suffered much! In fact, ever see him play? His middle finger is UNDER the fret board for his A forms!) and still inspire a million people to pick up instruments and learn to play (instead of waiting around til they could do what Robert Frip does) He'd have to be called an inspiring guitarist, though obviously, technically his playing is more endurance based.
Ribot is sometimes said to be 3rd rate as a jazz musician, and I find the phrase meaningless and silly. After all, every time some guitar rag, full of advertising, lists the most influential guitarists of blah blah blah - the list is almost always the same group of tired classic rock and popular musicians that the kids vote for - there's very little new or interesting happening there. We've heard it!
Ribot is exciting, different, and very inspiring in his approach, tone, and even sleeve art and titles.
You must here Postizos off the Y los postizos cubanos album, to understand where I'm coming from. Lots of fun.

Been there.......2005-10-10

Yes, they are monsters when on stage. But beware, it could make a confusion - a friend of mine ran away from the club after 15 minutes of Ribot's & Ayler's controlled chaos. Wanderful, but not for everybodys ears. However, the recording is less disturbing, almost pleasant.

spitual unity.......2005-09-01

marc ribot is one of our most interesting guitars along with bill frisell. ribot has recognized albert ayler as the great jazz composer, improviser, and performer. ayler's compositions are the great dark ones of jazz. perhaps now ribot or frisell should tackle bix beiderbecke's work.

Spirits Rejoice........2005-07-06

Marc Ribot's Spiritual Unity is a band put together to explore the music of Albert Ayler, both from a compositional and theoretical standpoint-- this recording, four Ayler pieces and one original by Ribot, are performed with the same sort of frenzied collective improvisation style of Ayler's bands. What's remarkable is that for a band that was relatively recently formed, this quartet (Ribot on guitar, bassist on several early Ayler sessions Henry Grimes, trumpeter Roy Campbell and drummer Chad Taylor) sounds as though they've been doing this for years.

Themes are generally briefly stated, after which frantic collective improvisation begins-- at each point, there is a solo voice, but everyone gets involved in the improvisation. Perhaps most impressive is Grimes, making only his second recording since returning to the music scene, who performs with a self-assured confidence, particularly arco. The album is full of powerful moments (all over), but for me, the best moment is the theme statement of "Truth is Marching In"-- Campbell plays the melody, Ribot counters and harmonies it and Grimes freely associates in arco below. Eventually, Taylor joins in and adds flourishes and emphasis to the points being made. The band switches to a second theme (about four and a half minutes in) before soloing, and you can hear the pure joy in their playing.

All in all, this is a great piece-- you get the impression (particularly from the included live recording, "Bells") that this band would be a monster live and that this is only a snapshot of what their potential is. Recommended.

Primal free jazz classics for a new century.......2005-05-18

One of the original giants of 1960's free jazz, saxophonist Albert Ayler's simple folk melodies and catchy march themes are easily the most instantly recognizable yet curiously the least covered or emulated. Guitarist Marc Ribot's "Spiritual Unity" is an attempt to bring Ayler's music into the future by re-imagining these primal works with an electro-acoustic quartet.

From Tom Waits and Elvis Costello to the Lounge Lizards and John Zorn, Ribot is the consummate Downtown scenester. Following his muse from the early "fake-jazz" of his own Rootless Cosmopolitans to exploring Afro-Cuban rhythms with his Los Cubanos Postizos, Ribot has always had an ear for the primal. Shrek was Ribot's early attempt to translate the energetic qualities of Ayler's passionate acoustic free jazz sensibilities to an electric guitar ensemble. With "Spiritual Unity" Ribot has assembled a quartet that not only mirrors Ayler's own classic quartet line-ups, but even features an original member.

With Henry Grimes, Ayler's original bassist, "Spiritual Unity" has a link to the past that provides a solid conceptual as well as sonic foundation. Despite Grimes' decades long hiatus from performing, he sounds utterly confident here and holds down the bottom end as readily as he uses his arco playing to invoke Ayler's frequent use of violins and cellos in his later music. Drummer Chad Taylor's approach to the intrinsic freedom found in these tunes is one of freely modulated pulse and embodies as much textural coloration as blazing forward momentum. Trumpeter Roy Campbell, a long time admirer of the late Don Cherry (one of Ayler's many horn partners) holds up the front line with splintery abstract glee one moment, somber lyricism the next. It is Ribot's own angular electric guitar improvisations that propel the album into the future however. Utilizing an edgy overdriven sound to conjure Ayler's own primal tenor shreik, Ribot bridges the gap between free jazz saxophone skronk and rock guitar wail.

The tunes themselves are mere melodic skeletons, sketched out head melodies designed for intensive improvisation. Subtly updating the old man's original formula, Ribot has managed to transmit Ayler's timeless folk tunes into the next century. Unconcerned with tricky time changes and complex multipart themes utilized by so many other Downtown improvisers, this session is one of unfettered free blowing. The only non-studio track, the closer "Bells," recorded live at Tonic, is a perfect example of the quartet's methodology. Riding a simple melody from barely audible pointillism to burn out collective improvisation and back again, these four conjure everything from plaintive sing song cadences to frenzied electric melt down.

"Spiritual Unity" not only breathes life into classic post-war free jazz tunes, but provides an easy entrance for those unfamiliar with the folksy delirium of Albert Ayler's oeuvre.

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Spiritual Unity
Albert Ayler
Manufacturer: Get Back
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00073K7OO
Release Date: 2000-01-11

Tracks:

Ghosts: First Variation
Wizard
Spirits
Ghosts: Second Variation

Average customer rating:

Spiritual Unity

Manufacturer: Esp
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Jazz | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000068FS6
Release Date: 2005-03-15

Tracks:

Ghosts, First Variation
The Wizard
Spirits
Ghosts, Second Variation

Album Details

Ayler's Debut Release on the Esp Label Recorded July 10, 1964, it Remains a Historical Moment in Avant-garde Jazz

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Jah Creation
Jah Creation
Manufacturer: JAH Creation
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | International | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000CADRC6
Release Date: 2002-08-13

Average customer rating:

Getting Better Every Minute
Richard Mekdeci
Manufacturer: Chrome Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00062WSU2
Release Date: 2004-04-04

Tracks:

God Is
Getting Better Every Minute
Only Love Can Do That
God Chant
All The Glory
Letting Go Of Holding On
Empowered
Goodbye Old Friend
Man At The Well
Children Of God
One Life To Live
The I Of The Storm
The Love Of God
There Is No God But God
Lords Psalm
Temptation

Album Description

Inspo-pop (Inspirational Pop). Non-denominational, world peace, unity, spiritual themes. Fully produced, radio ready. Mekdeci is an internationally known singer, songwriter and producer on a mission of world peace.

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Unity 4 Ever

Manufacturer: Rydem Inc.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000CAEUEK
Release Date: 2004-05-25

Tracks:

Reggae Music (dub)
Unity

Jazz Music:

Jazz Music

Jazz Music