" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Tintweiss gave to Zev Feldman for the liner booklet of the box set Revelations: The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings, which the archival producer released on Elemental Records in early 2022. Tintweiss, who had never played with Ayler before, was a member of Ayler's band at the Fondation Maeght in the south of France, where Ayler headlined on July 25 and 27, 1970 (the privately funded, mountain-top arts centre, patronised by jet-set culturati, had enough class to give Ayler and his musicians an expenses-paid rest day between performances).

"At the compound where we were staying, you could hear Albert practicing for most of the day," said Tintweiss. "People would come around and Albert was very open. He'd come right out onto the grounds with a joint in his hands and he wouldn't think anything of it while he was talking with people. It was very casual. When it came to any pressure, Albert was just one of the most spiritual people I've ever met."

Now, broadly speaking, back in 1970, people who came right out and smoked weed casually in public fell into two groups. On the one hand, idiots. On the other, those who were guileless, pure of heart and unafraid of being locked up because they knew no-one could ever chain their mind. Ayler was among the latter, beautiful, a free spirit.

At Slugs' Saloon 1966 Revisited brings together just under eighty minutes of music Ayler performed at Slugs in New York's East Village on May 1, 1966. As jazz venues went, Slugs was at the far end of the spectrum from the high-end Fondation Maeght. Slugs was as funky as it got, a hang out for a bohemian demi-monde of druggies, dealers, poets, painters and hardcore jazz fans.