Our tradition of going to see interesting movies between Christmas and New Year goes back quite a long way, but many of those visits will be lost in the mists of time as we often would plan and do those visits “on a whim”, with neither of us recording the details in our diary.
But both Janie and I recorded this one in our diaries, as we were fitting this evening visit between quite busy Twixtmas work schedules that year.
Christmas had been a slightly sombre but not sober affair that year. The first gathering without dad and (as it turned out) Len’s last gathering. Janie soldiered on with many of the traditions that had formed over the past few years, not least (I think) a goose. I’ll write more about such gatherings for an earlier, happier year.
Anyway, My Name Is Albert Ayler was a highly acclaimed movie about the jazz musician of that name. We had not got round to seeing it when it was released earlier that year in the UK so were thrilled to see that we had the chance to catch it one evening at the ICA.
We were both very much taken with the movie, which we found very interesting, although we are less sure about free jazz music, as our experience at the Festival Hall a few months earlier attests:
Albert Ayler’s free jazz is a little easier on the ear than the above concert was…but not much. You can judge for yourselves with the YouTube of Ayler’s 1963 album, My Name Is Albert Ayler, below:
No trailer for the movie on line, sadly.
We were hardy (foolhardy?) folk in those days – we saw a late movie and must have eaten afterwards, as we both saw clients late afternoon/early evening. Then we got up at silly o’clock, because Janie had a very early patient to see the next morning.
Still, at least we can be pretty sure that free jazz wouldn’t have given either of us an ear worm tune through the night.