Canyons Of Your Mind
This month’s revived power source: chaos and luminescence from a New York jazz loft.
Free spirits: Alan Braufman blasts away with nephew Nabil Ayers (son of Roy/Valley Of Search label founder/4AD GM) on drums, Alan’s apartment, Canal Street, NYC, circa ’74.
Courtesy Nabil Ayers
Alan Braufman
Valley Of Search
INDIA NAVIGATION, 1975
INTHE EARLY ’70s, downtown Manhattan was a textbook example of urban blight. It came with a musical upside. Unable to gain a foothold in New York’s traditional clubs, a generation of young free jazz improvisers set up alter native venues in its abandoned warehouses, factories and galleries, charging as little as a dollar for entrance. Alongside Sam Rivers’ Studio Rivbea (24 Bond Street), dr ummer Rashied Ali’s Ali’s Alley (77 Greene Street) and Or nette Coleman’s Jazz Loft (131 Prince Street), a group of Berklee College of Music students set up shop at 501 Canal Street’s old storefront.