Audio February Film Series: My Name is Albert Ayler

Thursday, February 19th | 7pm | $5

The Bridge is proud to present Kaspar Collins’ recent documentary My Name is Albert Ayler, as part of our Audio February series of events.

The prophetic free jazz saxophonist Alber Ayler, who today is seen as one of the most important innovators in jazz, was obsessed with his radical music and by the thought that people would one day understand it. In his own words, “If people don’t like it now, they will.”

“Kasper Collin’s My Name Is Albert Ayler documents the mystical sax screamer from childhood to his eerie early death — an unsolved drowning in the East River at the age of 34. Cribbing interview material first heard on Revenant’s blazing Holy Ghost box set, Ayler narrates in snippets of wispy, awestruck drawl. Interviews with snare splitter Sonny Murray and the exceedingly badass Gary Peacock shed light on a laundry list of Ayler’s earthly troubles — money, potential psychosis, his brother’s nervous breakdown, and a Yoko-ish marriage — which somehow coexisted with his glowing, seraphic tunes. The clincher is an interspersed reel of ecstatic European tour footage that will vaporize your bones.” -Marc Gilman