Reception
A critical contemporary review in the magazine Down Beat declined to award any stars to the album. [6]
The Allmusic review by Michael G. Nastos states: "As Albert Ayler recorded several definitive recordings before or after this one, and due to the very short length of Bells, it cannot be considered a magnum opus. But it does contain music played by his most powerful unit, a small window into the mind and heart of the most iconic maverick in the free jazz movement, and a magnet for discussion that lingers on well past his death". [5]
The authors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz awarded the album 3 stars, stating that it was "a token that here was music so powerful you'd probably only manage 20 minutes of it before switching off the hi-fi and taking deep gulps of air." [8]
All About Jazz commented: "Part of the lasting brilliance of Bells is that the group is much more roughshod at this early stage, the ensemble not yet formed into a cohesive, balanced whole but a rickety patchwork, its seams (and therefore process) showing proudly through". [9]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
