New York Eye and Ear Control is an album of group improvisations recorded in July 1964 by an augmented version of Albert Ayler's group to provide the soundtrack for Michael Snow's film of the same name.
Background
New York Eye and Ear Control came about when artist, musician, and filmmaker Michael Snow received a commission from a Toronto-based organization called Ten Centuries Concerts for a film employing jazz. Snow had recently attended and enjoyed a concert by saxophonist Albert Ayler (he recalled "I was completely knocked out"), and had been making his studio on Chambers Street in lower Manhattan available to musicians such as Roswell Rudd, Archie Shepp, Paul Bley, and Milford Graves for rehearsals. He decided to hire Ayler and his quartet (which at the time included trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Sunny Murray, and which had recently recorded the albums Prophecy and (without Cherry) Spiritual Unity), along with trombonist Rudd and saxophonist John Tchicai, to make a recording, stating that he "wanted to buy a half an hour of music."
Snow recalled that he had certain stipulations going into the session: "I didn't want any previously played compositions, and I wanted it to be as much ensemble improvisations as could be with no solos." He also stated: "As I was being involved with so-called free jazz, I was always surprised at how everybody was still bookending, as in all of previous jazz where you play a tune, play your variations, then play the tune again. I kept feeling that I didn't want that, and particularly what I had in mind for the film, I definitely didn't want it. I wanted it as pure free improvisation as I could get." According to Snow, "They accepted and they performed this way... in my opinion, this is one reason for which the music is so great." He later called the ensemble "one of the greatest jazz groups ever." (In his 1966 essay "Around about New York Eye and Ear Control," Snow summarized his thoughts regarding the music: "Song form finally unusable, strict rhythm finally unusable in 'Jazz.' It goes 'ahead' where it has to... Surprise! Demand for Song and Dance so natural there can be 'new' Songs, 'new' Rhythm, 'new' Dances. A very pleasant surprise.")
The recording session took place on July 17, 1964 at the loft of poet Paul Haines, who was Snow's neighbor and who also set up and operated the recording equipment. Roswell Rudd recalled that Snow "didn't say anything. He said just go ahead and play and when he got the time he needed, he took that and made a movie with it. In other words made the movie from an improvised jam session rather than make the movie and fit the soundtrack to it. He made a soundtrack and then went out and shot a movie. I don't know how many people have ever done that." (The album liner notes confirm this, stating "The music was recorded prior to the production of the film.")
Snow's film uses the motif of what he called the "Walking Woman," a silhouette based on the image of Carla Bley. Snow stated: "In my films I've tried to give the sound a more pure and equal position in relation to the picture." "I was hoping for an uninterrupted stream of energy against which I was going to place the almost completely static shots of the two-dimensional Walking Woman figure, either negative or positive. The picture was edited with no reference to what sound episode might accompany it. It is an attempt to make a simultaneity of 'eye' with 'ear.' And the music was created to be a movie sound track, not to just be 'music.'"
Regarding his choice of a title, Snow also said:
It's like the music is a particular kind of experience, and the film is something quite different that you see simultaneously. That's why the title, New York Eye and Ear Control: it was actually being able to hear the music and being able to see the picture without the music saying, This image is sad, or this image is happy — which is a way that movie music is always used. I really wanted it to be possible that you could hear them. So, they're very, very different. It's as if the image part of it is very classical and static. In fact, most of the motion is in the music actually. So, they're kind of counterpointing and being in their own worlds, but happening simultaneously.