Wilson spent six months in the USA following in Ayler’s footsteps. He had numerous conversations with contemporary witnesses, including Ayler’s father and brother, drummers Sunny Murray and Milford Graves, violinist Michael Samson, multi-instrumentalist Howard Johnson, and bassist Gary Peacock. His biographical account is followed by compelling analysis of Ayler’s style, and his published and unpublished recordings. 

Wilson shows how Ayler was always unconventional. An early friend, pianist Bobby Few, reported that he refused to tune his saxophone to the piano, because he was sure the instrument would find the right tuning by itself! Remarkably, Ayler had an early and successful career as a golfer, and won trophies that can be seen in one of the book’s illustrations – a greater contrast with the career of a free jazz pioneer could hardly be imagined. 

Ayler’s motto was “escaping from notes to sounds”. Army colleague Tony Viscomi reports that “He always had this tone that sounded like a cacophony of howling voices”. Yet he didn’t hear the music of Coleman, Taylor or Coltrane till 1961, Viscomi claimed. In his military service, he was particularly taken with the march tunes. From the start of his career, many musicians thought him a charlatan. “I get thrown out everywhere – I don’t miss a single chord change but they just don’t understand me”, he complained. 

The book outlines his recording career, most importantly with ESP. One of his most sympathetic partners was bassist Gary Peacock, who gave up working with Bill Evans in order to join him. As Wilson puts it, somewhat tendentiously, “after meeting Ayler [he] could not imagine getting seriously involved in Evans’ project of densely structured and precisely crafted jazz chamber music”. (Note that Peacock later was a musical partner of Keith Jarrett.) Peacock regarded Ayler’s playing as a “celebration of existence”, while Ayler believed that Peacock was “the best bass player that I ever met”. Ayler had a charismatic effect on more than one fellow musician. Another musical partner, cellist Joel Freedman – Wilson tells us that this is the correct spelling – reported that after a gig at the Village Gate, “When we stopped playing, I felt that my life had changed completely and irrevocably for the better”. 

Free jazz is often associated with civil rights activism, but Ayler was not the most political of free jazz players. John Tchicai commented that “I’m sure Albert was concerned about the situation of the blacks in the 1960s. But as far as I know, he didn’t take part in any kind of political activity beyond his music”. 

Stylistically, Wilson analyses Ayler’s love of folk song and march, his furious instrumental glossolalia and his pathos-freighted ballads. This was one of the great free jazz expressionists, perhaps the most influential and radical. Wilson explains the profound change in Ayler’s music around 1965 – he said “I’m trying to get more form in the free form”, making his music more accessible. He also argues that Ayler’s final period, 1968-70, should not be limited to the music of the much-contested album New Grass. Wilson’s opinions are always thoughtful and persuasive, and his book is highly recommended. 

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Bubbles (1903-86) was born John William Sublett Jr in Nashville, Tennessee. Brian Harker’s excellent biography explains his difficult upbringing and his lucky breaks in the entertainment business. His partnership with pianist Buck Washington became a vaudeville star-turn. We learn that Buck was so short that he couldn’t reach the pedals if he sat on the piano stool, so he played standing up.

Fred Astaire considered Bubbles “the greatest tapper ever”. He originated rhythm tap, dropping his heels in heavy syncopation, bringing the weight down from his toes. George Gershwin knew Bubbles as a vaudeville star, and picked him for the role of Sportin’ Life in Porgy And Bess. Gershwin wanted the character, a drug peddler, to be “a humorous and dancing villain”. The discussion of his role in this “part opera, part musical, part white fantasy, part Black reality”, as Harker calls it, forms some of the most fascinating material of the book.

Bubbles had a propensity for improvisation – and as a vaudeville performer, wasn’t familiar with learning this kind of part. But eventually he became a star of the production. His interpretation was supplanted in 1959 by Sammy Davis Jr.’s – but that was because, as Harker writes, “Few performers today can sing and dance with equal confidence, and fewer still know how to tap”.

Harker sums up why Bubbles isn’t better-known: “he failed to appear in enough films, in strong enough roles, to ensure his immortality.” For institutional racist reasons, Harker argues, the role of the slinkily seductive Sportin’ Life proved fatal for Bubbles’ film career. An example is his appearance in the unremarkable 1937 Warner Brothers musical Varsity Show, a vehicle for Dick Powell. Buck and Bubbles are cast, characteristically and demeaningly, as janitors, and Bubbles has a one-minute tap dance scene that Harker describes as a “masterpiece…the first (and possibly the best) film of Bubbles tapping”. But he never got the opportunities of a Dick Powell, let alone a Fred Astaire. The discussion of Bubbles’ comeback reminds us how, as late as the 1960s, shockingly racist attitudes persisted in the world of TV and light entertainment.

Brian Harker is known for his excellent monograph on Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz, 2011), a title that combined astute musical analysis with cultural history. Like its precursor, his new book is closely-written yet very readable. It benefited from a stroke of luck in 2012, when Bubbles’ personal papers were donated to Brigham Young University, where Harker teaches. They included an unpublished 1969 biography by a writer named Jerry McGuire, in which Bubbles’ life-story is told largely in his own words. Harker has added to this material with his own archival research, and the result is a richly-deserved restoration of the legacy of a major figure in American entertainment.

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The second set that evening featured Jeff Ballard’s Fairgrounds, with Logan Richardson (alto saxophone), Charles Altura (electric guitar) and Joe Sanders (bass). Sometimes one’s view of an artist changes – or maybe they’ve changed. I first heard Richardson at Bergamo a few years back, when his band gave an in-your-face performance of coldly macho jazz-funk. This time he was a much more interesting and reflective player, stylistically indebted to Ornette Coleman and perhaps Steve Coleman. The quartet began with Booker Ervin’s “A Lunar Tune” from The Freedom Book (1963) – a modal composition, with no connection to any Moon-featuring standard that I could hear. There are many great compositions from this era that have failed to enter the repertoire, and Ballard should be applauded for interpreting it. It was followed by his ballad “Alone”, then Ornette Coleman’s “Chronology”. With the possible exception of a drum solo piece, this was an excellent and intriguing set.

The festival highlight, for me, was Brad Mehldau – the greatest jazz pianist now performing. His grey beard made him look like Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, and he seemed more relaxed than I’ve seen him previously. The Donizetti Theatre, a large venue, was packed for a challenging ninety-minute solo set. It was an art more than entertainment presentation, though leavened by Beatles and Radiohead compositions – astute concessions to contemporary audience taste. Though I’m not as convinced as Mehldau evidently is by their quality as vehicles for improvisation, the effort must be made. Featured were Radiohead’s “Karma Police” and “Little By Little”, The Beatles’ “I Am The Walrus”, “Your Mother Should Know” and “She Said She Said”, and Neil Young’s “Old Man” – continuing the jazz tradition of exploiting the pop music of the day, even if some of it is now fifty years old.

Stevie Wonder’s “Golden Lady” totally convinced, but generally my preference was for older material, and for Mehldau originals such as “Waltz For JB” and “In The Kitchen” – a motoric, boogie-woogie-ish blues with clever key-cycle quirks. On Cole Porter’s “It’s Alright With Me”, Mehldau moved far out in his explorations, and on Brahms’ “Rhapsody” (op. 79, I think no. 2) also showed his mastery in jazzing the classics. Clearly a genius.

Other recitals, at more chamber-ish venues, included Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy. After fifteen minutes the first piece burst into violent life, thankfully, producing a fragile lyrical intensity. The Danish guitarist was shoe-less, playing controls and pedals with his toes. Henriksen, on trumpet and pocket trumpet, had a seraphic, Buddha-like smile – he also had it at breakfast in the hotel the next morning – and his New Age tendencies have never been to my taste. Rossy gave the performance some needed muscle, however; with his beanie hat, he reminded me in appearance of the late Paul Motian. A piece by Bro, dedicated to Tomasz Stańko with whom he played with for some years, was filled with an East European folk plangency, and echoes of Bartok scales. “Beautiful!” murmured the woman next to me as the performance ended, though for me, the trumpeter’s contributions made it a little precious.

The Régis Huby Quintet is a band of strings and trumpet sonorities, offering segued performances that blend improv, soundscapes, noise and ambient. Drummer Claude Tchamitchian played electronics, including vinyl applique noise, and I was glad finally to catch guitarist Eivind Aarset live, after listening to his music over many years. The fine trumpeter Tom Arthurs took the Henriksen role, and the leader produced memorably distinctive work on semi-acoustic and solid-body electric violin.

Finally there were the idiosyncratic and historic locations that Bergamo specialises in. Ava Mendoza‘s solo gig took place in the Academia Carrara. She stood before an array of pedals, and in front of Giotti’s Death Of Antigone. Her rock-based approach, reminiscent of Sonny Sharrock, favoured texture rather than melody – though the set ended with a bluesy vocal, and the encore was two blues compositions in Robert Johnson style. It was interesting to compare her approach with the purer jazz sound of Charles Altura from the previous evening – two very compelling stylists.

The Mazurek/Mitelli Duo performed in a room inside the Porta Sant’Agostino, part of the fortifications built by the Venetians in the sixteenth century. Gabriele Mitelli played cornet and soprano sax, and worked with electronics and voice, while Rob Mazurek was on trumpet, pocket trumpet, percussion and electronics. I saw him at the Glasgow Jazz Festival in the 1980s, when he was a sharp-suited young hardbopper, and the transformation is total. Now you’d call him a grizzled veteran, the suit long abandoned for crumpled informality.

Their set opened with a multiphonic trumpet blast from Mitelli, then a fragile melody on muted trumpet from Mazurek, against quietly pulsing tones on electronics. Mazurek stabbed with seeming casualness at electronic modules, while he quietly jangled a mass of small cowbells tied together with rope. The duo’s playing was raw, uninhibited and real. Their sonic cornucopia, wild and free, is one of the most exciting and convincing meldings of electronic and acoustic forces I’ve heard.

I can only mention the two amazing vocalists from the festival’s final night at Teatro Donizetti. Michael Mayo and his trio played pieces from their recent debut album, and it was a joy to hear such excellent material performed by such a simpatico band. Mayo is a virtuoso, especially in his mix of falsetto and conventional tones, and his scatting. Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba – another virtuoso in the best sense – led an exciting band mixing jazz, guaracha, charanga and salsa, and featuring diva Aymée Nuviola who’s inherited the mantle of Celia Cruz. It was a fitting finale for a festival with an uncanny ability to present the music’s state of the art.

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Among issues that Ainsworth discusses are the jazz image as document and expression, the document and realism, and authenticity and photographic art. He has insightful discussion of neglected areas including studio publicity portraiture, the canonisation of white photographers that has largely been accepted in the jazz literature, and work done for the segregated press. Ainsworth is a photographer and historian of photography, and a scholar specialising in architectural and music photography. As the blurb puts it, he “asks how photographers have framed jazz as a space of aesthetic, cultural, and political meaning”.

Central to his critique is the claim that “Although photography is widely employed by jazz writers, it has mostly been as illustrative material rather than a historical source requiring critical interpretation”. Roy Porter is quoted commenting that the training of historians “encourages us to assume the primacy of written records”. Peter Burke comments that historians rarely work in photographic archives, and “tend to treat [photographic images] as mere illustrations, reproducing them in their books without comment”. Ainsworth cites Krin Gabbard’s 1995 anthology Jazz Among The Discourses as key to broadening the perspective, and embracing visual evidence.

The issue is reminiscent of the neglect of film music within film studies – in fact it’s the converse of that. Many of the great film directors – Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders for instance – have an intuitive understanding of the contribution of music to film. But others have a functional attitude to film music, and seem to be ignorant of how music works. How many jazz writers have an understanding of the power of the photographic image, and of its contribution to writing on jazz? Very few I would say.

An example of Ainsworth’s insightful analysis is his discussion of a photograph every jazz fan should know – William Gottlieb’s image of Monk, Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge and Teddy Hill standing outside Minton’s Playhouse in 1947 (above). I’ve seen this iconic image many times, but like most jazz writers, hadn’t really reflected on its significance. Ainsworth comments that “interpretations of the photograph dissolve the development of bebop to a small subculture apart from conventional life”. He points out that Roy Eldridge wasn’t a bebopper, and unlike the other participants, isn’t dressed in the bebop fashion. However, I’m not convinced that he’s so out of place here – he was a transitional figure who worked with beboppers.

The book isn’t an easy read. Despite its beautiful illustrations, it’s a weighty academic tome, and has a theoretical framework guided, as Ainsworth writes, by British scholar Margaret Archer. The book’s basic premise is that “photography is a form of practical engagement in the real world and the photography a site of reflexivity” – “the conscious human process through which we make sense of the world and our identity within it”. Ainsworth is a writer who doesn’t believe in what I call “sign-posting” – helping the reader to follow the line of argument by summaries and linking explanations. Those who choose not to read the book from cover to cover, will still gain much by dipping into it. Sight Readings is a groundbreaking contribution to its subject, and offers many insights to the patient reader.

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Conrad began playing jazz in Liverpool, appearing at clubs like The Cavern in pre-Beatles days. From his beginnings as a trombonist in New Orleans style bands, his interests widened, and he took up bass and piano. At Nottingham University he read English, but his passion was jazz. He found his niche writing software, which paid the bills. 

In 1981, he moved to Leicester, and became Director of Jazz Studies at De Montfort University, Leicester, and ran the Basic Musicianship course. His book Harmony with LEGO Bricks came out of that experience. The book was a guide to jazz improvisation which shows how standard songs are constructed from common components, and so explains how they can be learned in all keys without effort.

After moving to Leicester, he bought a saxophone, and formed Nardis, with Gavin Bryars on bass and John Runcie on drums. They supported Lee Konitz in a memorable gig, about which Conrad commented with characteristic modesty, “Playing with Lee was the ultimate challenge, and though I knew I was not really up to it, I decided not to have anything pre-planned, nor to have any sheet music with me.”

His book LEGO Bricks presented Cork’s alternative to the mechanical approach – rejected by Konitz – of deriving the improvised line from the harmony rather than the melody of the song. In response to the question “Would you really improvise any differently if it was ‘Ornithology’ rather than ‘How High The Moon?’, or ‘Donna Lee’ rather than ‘Indiana’?”, which are on the same chords, Cork would say “If you’re any good you play them differently”. Harmony should be in second place to melody. Learning the common harmonic building-bricks of songs makes the harmony so familiar that one can improvise intuitively.

Edinburgh pianist John Elliott, influenced by Cork’s book and ideas, wrote his own book, Insights in Jazz (2009), and took over running the discussion group about the LEGO bricks method (link to his website below).

Conrad was a true educator with a proselytising zeal for jazz and improvisation. He was a great and benign influence on all who came into contact with him, and his pride in his book is totally justified. It offers some of the deepest insights into jazz aesthetics, and has had a wide influence on the jazz community.

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