Charles Tyler

Featuring: Steve Reid

condition (record/cover): EX / VG+ (minimal ring wear)

Charles Tyler - the baritone and alto voice from the Ayler bands and two classic ESP leader dates - documented live in Europe on his own AK-BA label, the imprint he ran with the same fierce independence that marked his entire path through the music. Tyler never softened and never needed to: the huge sound, the folk-melody directness learned in the Ayler crucible where he served as the great man's chosen reed partner, the blues gravity underneath the freedom - all intact on the European stages that gave this generation the sustained welcome America rationed out in weekends. The self-released live document was the era's honest medium: no producer, no compromise, the music as played, pressed and sold by the hand that made it.

The AK-BA releases circulated modestly and are quietly, steadily hunted by those who know the catalog and what it stands for. A strong document of an underrecorded master, from the self-determination shelf where the best stories in this music live.