Had music not claimed Albert Ayler's exclusive devotion, Tiger Woods may have been citing him as an influence on his extraordinary career.

"He played golf as good as he played the horn," the late saxophonist's father Edward, recalled in an interview in his hometown of Cleveland. "But music was his first love."

Albert Ayle

The fruits of what by many accounts was fiery but unforgettable union between Ayler ("eye-ler") and music are now being documented in a newly-released 10-CD box set compiled by Austin, Texas-based reissue label, Revenant Records. The lavish box (done as a replica of a spirit box common to Asian and African cultures) is entitled Holy Ghost after one of Ayler's better known albums.

Among the expected highlights of the set are five different versions of his majestic composition Truth Is Marching On a blues dirge which Ayler's friend and fellow sax legend John Coltrane reportedly told his wife to have played at his funeral (Coltrane passed on July 17, 1967). One of the versions is in fact, a live recording of Ayler and his band playing the song at the funeral service.

Indeed, Ayler's music could not be described as your typical
Sunday jazz brunch fare. The head of the reissue label, Dean Blackwood, says Ayler genuinely shocked people, and though there is now renewed interest in his contribution to the jazz idiom, he was initially rejected (as was Coltrane), by several critics as well as listeners and even some of his musical contemporaries.

His musical bent was revealed early. At age two, his father recalls, he would lift up a footstool, put one leg to his mouth and attempt to blow it like a horn.

He also would peek behind the huge home radio, trying to figure out where the music came from. Once he became old enough to play a real instrument, his father pushed him hard, even beating him for not practising. The young Albert and his father played duets in the local church, marking his first public performances.

At age 10, Ayler went to study at the Cleveland Academy of
Music, where he quickly outplayed his peers. On his high school orchestra, he played the first chair alto as well as the oboe. His most striking talent, his father points out, was his ability to memorise entire sheets of music. Legend also has it that the adult Ayler would warm up for his live performances by playing the solos of Charlie Parker backwards.

After high school, Ayler joined the army and was primarily stationed in France. He played in an army band, touring the cafes and night spots of Paris and here began to re-cast the sounds of his childhood idols, Lester Young, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, along with the then avant-garde notes of [pianist] Cecil Taylor into what would become his own style.

On returning to the US he eventually put together a band that included his younger brother Donald, on trumpet. The group struggled financially, and even after touring Europe, where they were better received than in the US Ayler suffered due to non-payment of royalties.

Ayler sought later in his career to make his music somewhat more accessible, for instance by including vocals (his own and those of companion Mary Parks; he had previously left wife Arlene). He was also given to intense pontifications on religious matters particularly on the Book of Revelations, and frequently asserted that he had visions of angels.

None of those would be fully expounded on however, as on the morning of November 25, 1970, Ayler's body was found floating in New York City's East River. He was 34 years-old.
The medical examiner ruled drowning, but no autopsy was performed and speculation has remained rampant about the circumstances leading to his death.

Parks reportedly told a British musicologist that Ayler committed suicide by jumping off a ferry boat, but theories blamed everyone from the Mob (for alleged drug debts, though Ayler and bandmates denied using anything stronger than marijuana) to the FBI as part of a wider conspiracy against black artistes.

That issue remains unresolved, but Ayler's forward-thinking spirit and ferocious playing continue to inspire musicians, both in and out of the jazz world, to this day.

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