Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962–70) is a compilation album by avant-garde saxophonist Albert Ayler released by Revenant Records in 2004. The 9-CD Box Set, housed in a reproduction "Spirit Box" contains live performances recorded by Ayler in Helsinki, Copenhagen, New York City, Cleveland, Berlin, Rotterdam, Newport and Saint-Paul-de-Vence over an eight-year period and features a variety of line-ups which include Cecil Taylor, Sunny Murray, Jimmy Lyons, Gary Peacock, Don Cherry, Rashied Ali, Milford Graves, Donald Ayler, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Michael Samson, Frank Wright, Beaver Harris, Pharoah Sanders, Richard Davis, Sam Rivers, and Muhammad Ali. The set includes two discs of interviews, a 208-page book featuring essays by Val Wilmer, Amiri Baraka, and others, reproductions of memorabilia, a dried dogwood flower, and a bonus disc featuring Ayler's recordings with the 76th A.G. Army Band.

Reception

The AllMusic review by Thom Jurek states the following: "Revenant's amazing package certainly adds weight and heft to the argument for Ayler's true place in the jazz pantheon, not only as a practitioner of free jazz but as one of the music's true innovators...What Revenant has accomplished is to shine light into the darkened corners of myth and apocrypha; the label has added flesh-and-bone documented history to the ghost of a giant. Ayler struggled musically and personally to find and hold onto the elusive musical/spiritual balance that grace kissed him with only a few times during his lifetime—on tape anyway. But the quest for that prize, presented here, adds immeasurably to both the legend and the achievement." The authors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings awarded the album a full four stars, calling it "a titanic body of material... the Holy Grail of Ayler studies." The Wire named the box set the "record of the year" in its annual critics' poll. In December 2005, art directors Susan Archie and Noel Waggener were nominated for a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package for Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962–70).

Track listing

Disc One Disc Two Disc Three Disc Four Disc Five Disc Six Disc Seven Disc Eight Albert Ayler interviews with Birger Jorgense and Daniel Caux Disc Nine Albert Ayler interview with Kiyoshi Koyama Don and Mocqui Cherry Interview with Daniel Caux Bonus Disc

Personnel