Reviews – Film
April 2007
Anna Wood tackles the challenging sounds of freeform jazzer Albert Ayler, then bathes in the immense quiet of ‘Into Great Silence’
My Name is Albert Ayler
Dir: Kasper Collin
Cert tbc
Into Great Silence
Dir: Philip Groning
Cert U
Is it true that sometimes a man (it’s usually a man) suffers a more elegant, lonely pain than most of us will ever suffer and the music they make is part and parcel of that suffering? And is it true that there will, inevitably, eventually, be a documentary about it? They suffer, and we reap the musical benefits – but the film isn’t always such a pleasure. ‘DiG’ (about Anton Newcombe and The Brian Jonestown Massacre) is dull and uncritical, overlong and adoring, and not a good film; ‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston’ is a good film, though, and so is ‘New York Doll’. So is ‘Last Days’ (not a documentary about Kurt Cobain, but very nearly); it’s a rich new genre. Now comes ‘My Name Is Albert Ayler’, another film about a gifted and disturbed artist, and it has the advantage of being about a free jazz musician who most of us (and I hope I’m not presuming too little of Beatmag readers) know little or nothing about, a handsome young man who played alongside Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, and who was found dead in New York’s East River in 1970, aged 34.
The music he played is dizzying, straight-to-the-bone jazz, sometimes raging, sometimes flying, and sometimes making you want to weep and you’re not sure why. Ayler played tenor saxophone, and had some big ideas about himself. “I believe I am a prophet,” he announces in one of the taped interviews used like a voiceover here. Other lines of his are repeated, like a slow riff: “This is the only way that’s left for musicians to play. All the other ways have been explored,” and “People have to listen to this.” They are all statements that implicate misery and loneliness: the rest of the world is wrong; one day they will understand; I don’t care what they think but I can’t stop being angry about it; my way is the only right way. Most of us, if and when we harbour these thoughts, do not have a creative gift silently encouraging us in our opinions. Or friends, fans and family watching our greatness, not sure what to do. Ayler says, “My imagination is beyond the civilisation in which we live,” and it sounds terribly arrogant for a moment, until it sounds desperately lonely.
Like most decent music documentaries, this has a gallery of wise, wonderful people with googleable names. There’s a Scandinavian contingent, calm and wholesome, from Ayler’s time in Sweden: drummer and ex-lover Ann Westerman (who exudes goodness), Bengt Nordstrom (who first recorded Ayler, in Sweden), Lionel Marshall (a kind, sweet-faced drummer)… and a New York contingent, a little tougher and just as loving: Sunny Murray and Gary Peacock (men who seem to me like they could each have a pretty great documentary made about their lives. Drummer Sunny Murray is stern and surly and kind, and has stories to tell; Gary Peacock is a particularly handsome double bass player who was fasting when he first met Albert, in pursuit of enlightenment). Albert’s family cooperated with director Kasper Collin, too – his father, Edward, and his brother, Donald. Most of the film’s problems lie here. We are given the impression that Albert’s troubles, and his early death, stemmed from troubles with his family (a father with high expectations, an envious, sometime mentally ill brother and – so predictably – a domineering mother) but we also get the impression that this is just the cod-psychology view that the director holds. Albert’s lover and musical collaborator at the time of his death, Mary Parks, is subtly painted as yet another domineering woman, someone who took control of Ayler and isolated him from his brother, although Ayler himself described it in a different way: “It was a blessing for me to meet her. She takes care of things.” (In the film’s credits, Donald and Edward are listed as Albert’s father and brother, but Collin describes Mary with almost audible disdain as “the woman who Albert lived with when he died.”)
Even with these shortcomings, it’s an interesting film, and a valuable collection of archived footage from a musician who’s had a loyal cult following but not enough of a public airing.
To find real calm and inscrutability, and not a sniff of voiceover or cod psychology, watch ‘Into Great Silence’. Instead of explanations, quiet. Instead of music, quiet. Instead of theories, silence. This astounding documentary is so far being given an extraordinarily limited release, which is a shame not only because it’s a wonderful piece of cinema but also because it has such ambitious, calm, roomy images and themes that it really need to be seen on the big screen. A two-and-a-half hour film about French monks who rarely speak, watching this is a bit like meditating – you get fidgetty, then you get annoyed, then you get tired, then you get fidgetty again, then your mind starts to relax, you have thoughts and feelings bubbling up and floating away, and you come out feeling strong and calm and ineffably well.
