Photo: Larry Fink
Photo: Michael Snow
Photo: Ole Brask
My Name Is Albert Ayler
Kasper Collin:
My Name Is Albert Ayler (Sweden 2005)
79 min. – Beta – English
"One of the most starkly beautiful and moving documentaries ever made about a jazz musician." —Jazz Times
"Darkly beautiful ... brilliantly captures the disturbed essence of a brilliant but troubled man." —Time Out
"The quintessential portrait of an artist who was ahead of his time - and knew it" —SF Weekly
The prophetic free jazz saxophonist Albert 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 one day would understand it. In 1962 he recorded his first album in Sweden. Eight years later he was found dead in New York's East River. This documentary follows the trail of Albert from his native town of Cleveland by way of Sweden to New York, meeting family, friends and colleagues who help tell the story of his life and music. Albert himself guides us with his voice and music.
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Kasper Collin
My name is Albert Ayler is a debut film of Kasper Collin. Collin has worked with the movie and television productions from the mid nineties and graduated from university of Göteborg majoring culture and movie studies. Collin also operates his own production company called Kasper Collin Produktion. Documentary for Alber Ayler took nine years to make. Collins tireless investigation lead him to the Alberts Swedish colleagues and girlfriend. From here traces went to America where Collin found more colleagues including drummer Sonny Murray and bassist Gary Peacock. Finally Collin went to Cleveland where he found Aylers brother and Aylers 89 years old father. From all this excessive material Collin made 79 minutes lasting documentary masterpiece.