Mark O'Leary & Sunny Murray - Ode to Albert Ayler

The Wire

Mark O’Leary & Sunny Murray Ode To Albert Ayler (Ayler)
Mark O’Leary/Ståle Storløkken/Stein Inge Braekhus St Finn Barre’s (Leo)

Two sides of guitarist Mark O’Leary’s protean personality, with a wild duo thrash opposite the great drummer Sunny Murray to set against a stately and worshipful programme of quasi-liturgical pieces, recorded live at the cathedral in Cork City, with Ståle Storløkken tippy-toeing on its sweet-sounding organ and Braekhus adding delicate percussion accents. O’Leary always sounds like a jazz guitarist, without lapsing into ‘jazz guitar’ cliches. Even when he uses full distortion, as on the short “Taps” with Murray, he still manages to phrase like he’s been listening to Pat Martino or Jim Hall. The Leo set (and these are both 2002 recordings, plucked off the shelf) is the kind of thing ECM likes to do, but here it’s grainier and has a real sense of immanence.