“Albert Ayler; Flying Home” – a poem by Stephen C. Middleton

May 15th, 2025

ESP-Disk’s 2013 vinyl edition of Albert Ayler’s 1965 concert in New York

Listen to Stephen Middleton introduce his poem before reciting it.

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Albert Ayler – Flying Home

“They (his pieces) all sound like slightly estranged folk songs, or almost familiar marches. Some sound a little like ‘La Marseilles’ – and they all sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before, or will ever hear again”.

…Marching up to St Paul de Vence / up to Fondation Maeght – with its labyrinth.

Nearby, in Nice, sculpted head of Lionel Hampton, of ‘Flying Home’ fame, on the Allée Miles Davis – wonders in themselves. And it is Hampton who Albert mentions – on the radio he had tried to enter, aged three, to locate the source of the music, electric shocks his reward.

…Albert Ayler – Flying Home

At the Fondation, where he fell in love with Chagall.
In St Paul, where that painter lived
(And Albert played al fresco)
And in interview with Daniel Caux
He seemed positive
Buoyed up by the response
Just as that French warmth
Had spawned the celebratory ‘Spirits Rejoice’
“From being in Paris, in France”, he said
Time spent in (old) Orléans
Where no cursory negatives made him weep

Fondation, magnificence, mystery, mischief of labyrinth. Miró, Calder, Braque, Léger… Of artists’ books, Steinberg’s visual score from Nuits de la Fondation – Albert, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and more / myriad classical musicians. Duke Ellington walked here with Miró. The painted piano. Pitchfork aloft, and a creature indeterminate, a flat face, that follows, malevolent. The Giacometti Terrace – was it there, and was it under the geodesic dome that once covered it?

In America, Albert spent, broken, spirit smothered…lonely and lost, it is reported. In the interview, though… “everything”, he felt, “is getting perfected” and “the people of America”, who had rejected him “are getting there, slowly”.

So, confused but exhilarated in France, his choice to / determined to give America one last chance to understand.
The Fondation magnificent …but
…Albert Ayler – Flying Home.

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Stephen C. Middleton is a writer working in London, England. He has had five books published, and been in several anthologies. He was editor of Ostinato, a magazine of jazz and jazz related poetry. He has been published in magazines worldwide, including in the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, & mainland Europe.

Listen to the 1965 live recording of Albert Ayler performing his composition “Spirits Rejoice,” with Ayler (tenor saxophone); Donald Ayler (trumpet); Charles Tyner (alto saxophone); Henry Grimes (bass); and Sunny Murray (drums). [Naxos of America]