The Mysterious death of Albert Ayler

1:

FJ: Albert Ayler's death is jazz's unsolved mystery, do you know how Ayler ended up in the East River?

GARY PEACOCK: I don't know. All the information I got was second hand. The information that I got was that he was found dead in the East River and died by gunshot. And why that happened and how that happened, what the circumstances were, I have no idea, Fred.


2:



Did Albert Ayler fall into the East River or was he pushed?


3:

Albert Ayler’s body was retrieved from the East River, in Brooklyn, on November 25, 1970, a few months after his 34th birthday.


4:

On the evening of November 5, Albert again told Mary, "My blood has got to be shed to save my mother and my brother." After an argument, he smashed one of his saxophones over their television and stormed out of the house. Mary called the police to report Albert missing. Albert took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and jumped off as the boat neared Liberty Island (Hames 27).

Edward Ayler: He was truly a genius. Some make it and some don't. He didn't want to push out in front. That's all he wanted-to play. He had all the titles but not a dime ("Albert Ayler, 36").

On December 5, in the afternoon, Albert Ayler's body was buried at the chapel of Highland Park Cemetery in Cleveland, with 55 people, mostly family, in attendance ("Albert Ayler Dies").

Mysterious death came to two musicians closely associated with Ayler in the next year. Henry Grimes moved to California to become an actor and vanished without a trace (Wilmer 1980: 109). On September 21, 1971, Call Cobbs Jr. was killed by a hit and run driver ("Final Bar").