Brotzmann/ayler
Die Like A Dog/fragments Of Music And Life
MANY people didn't listen to him, he was disputed until the end of his short life. Most of all the critics and organizers mostly didn't really know what to do with him. The audience, especially in Europe, loved him. MUSIC IS THE HEALING FORCE OF THE UNIVERSE... he believed in it. From belief to vision there was only a little step, from vision to reality a jump into the East River. And, even if it was that short, his life is an example and most of all his death is an evidence not very unususal for the every-day-depressions, which a player of 'unsellable music' - according to his friend and comrade-in- arms, Charles Tyler - is exposed to in the United States, and especially in New York. Certainly the apprecation he met in Europe did him good. But then, back in New York, the depressions came again. (One year before he died he had had to bring his brother Donald into a madhouse) From the very beginning, the titles of his tunes have documeted his longing for another, better world: Spiritual Unit / Ghosts / Truth ls Marching In/ Universal Message / Holy Family / Our Prayer / Spirits Rejoice ... he really meant it. During his last years, the discrepancy between his will and his existence became increasingly recognizable: on one side the attempt to open the music to everybody, to let everybody participate in his experiences, his wild energy, his love to give everybody a part of is imagination. On the other side poverty that comes along with repression. The last three albums were recorded without passion at the end of the 60s - back to soul, R & B, garnished with banal lyrics, pressurzed by the record company. Not that there were of any success. After his concert in July 1970 in France, his fans were relieved: He was back again, with all his passion and persuasiveness. Four months later, he would be fished out of New York's East River.