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Charles Gayle

Charles Gayle blew down with hurricane force - the pun is too obvious - out of Buffalo. He drifted in and out of the first great free jazz scenes of the Sixties, playing with Pharoah, Archie Shepp, and other trailblazers. But he says now that his sound then was even more fiery and forceful than it is now, and he couldn't get a recording date. He drifted. He became homeless. He lived as a squatter in an abandoned Lower East Side tenement. He found Jesus.

He kept playing. His music retained its hard industrial edge. It sent listeners through the wall. It busted them out of the day-to-day grind into a divine ecstasy. It lifted and uplifted. He developed a tremendous facility with the upper- upper register of the tenor saxophone, so that he could take his spiritual flights to their farthest reaches. He played wherever he could; his steadiest gig was in the New York subways.

Eventually lightning struck. In the late Eighties Silkheart Records recorded three discs him featuring Gayle's ecstatic, holy holy tenor. One of them, the much-overlooked Always Born, paired him with the incomparable John Tchicai, a pairing that seemed problematic at the time but which worked much better than perhaps anyone was aware then.

After that work, and recordings, came a bit more steadily. For the enigmatic German FMP label he recorded the all-time classic Touchin' on Trane with musicians as talented and passionate as he: bassist William Parker and drummer Rashied Ali, a living connection with the Coltrane legacy that Gayle so dynamically extends here. But this disc became something of an anomaly in the Gayle discography: most of the others were much more furious. Gut-wrenching, metal-tearing, pedal-to-the-floor music.

Much of it was magnificent: Testaments, Repent, and More Live at the Knitting Factory are outrageous, outlandish sonic assaults. Testaments has a rough lyricism that is captivating; the other two make adroit use of doubled strings from bassist Vattel Cherry and William Parker on cello.

On some discs Gayle himself plays viola, bass clarinet, other oddments. His bass clarinet solos are deeply felt and generally more conventionally lyrical than his tenor blasts. He plays it to particular effect on FMP's Abiding Variations. But his chief double is piano, which he has played with increasing frequency and facility in recent years. He's even planning a piano disc loaded with standards, which could change popular perceptions of him - as could the majestic and hard-won lyricism of his tenor playing on the recent Delivered and Ancient of Days.

A Night at the Jazz Circus! - Companion Mixtape

by Ludovico Granvassu
November 24, 2020

From Charles Gayle's alter ego, Streets the Clown, to the music performed by the Kamikaze Ground Crew for the Flying Karamazov Brothers, from the countless jazz renditions of the iconi themes that Nino Rota wrote for Federico Fellini's movies to the equally countless jazz tunes inspired by circus acts... Jazz and Circus have a long history of cross-pollination. This mixtape is a fun-filled companion to the two parts of our show “A Night at the Jazz Circus!" [click ...

Album Review

Charles Gayle/Giovani Barcella/Manolo Cabras: Live In Belgium

Read "Live In Belgium" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
January 4, 2018

Picking up any recording by the saxophonist (sometimes pianist) Charles Gayle always reminds me of the quote by actress Bette Davis' from the the film All About Eve (1950). After downing her martini in one gulp, Davis walks away, turns, and announces “fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride." Not bumpy as in uneven or rutted here, but strident and earth-shaking music. Live In Belgium is no exception to that narrative. By now, the story ...

Album Review

The Charles Gayle Trio: Look Up

by John Sharpe
January 10, 2013

Fire-breathing saxophonist Charles Gayle has had to wait a long time for his ESP-disk debut. Allegedly, there was a 1974 session in the can, but the label folded in its earlier incarnation, before it saw the light of day. But now, a 1994 live date from Santa Monica has been issued on the revived imprint. Recorded during the spell that saw issue of such titles as Consecration (Black Saint, 1993), Kingdom Come (Knitting Factory Works, 1994) and Testaments (Knitting Factory ...

Album Review

Charles Gayle Trio: Streets

Read "Streets" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
March 23, 2012

The cover of Streets shows saxophonist Charles Gayle in his titular clown persona, the look on his face conveying a multitude of emotion. And that is precisely what Gayle is all about--a musician who parlays love, joy, happiness, laughter and sadness into his music.Gayle packs a wallop in his playing. His approach drives a myriad shades, high registers dipping into soft contours, probing and dissolving into an all-out attack. The moment is defined in the instant, with surprise ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Charles Gayle: Holiday Selection

by Chris May
December 17, 2011

Downtown veteran, multi-instrumentalist Charles Gayle's style suits all sorts of situations. It works equally well as an irresistible morning wake-up call or an unusual choice of late night, post-coital soundtrack. Whether he is playing tenor saxophone or viola, once heard, Gayle is not quickly forgotten. With the holiday season upon us, the selection below is a great package to gift to in-laws. You may not see them often, but they are in your thoughts! ...

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Multiple Reviews

Charles Gayle: Live at Crescendo and Forgiveness

by Jeff Stockton
January 10, 2009

By Any Means Live at Crescendo Ayler 2008 Charles Gyale Trio Forgiveness Not Two 2008

20 years ago Charles Gayle forged a reputation for iron chops, a relentless attack and Biblical fervor, a time when a 25-minute tune would have been considered the “short" one. In the intervening years as Gayle ...

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Album Review

Charles Gayle: Touchin' On Trane

Read "Touchin' On Trane" reviewed by Francis Lo Kee

by Francis Lo Kee
December 16, 2008

A long time ago, there was an advertising line: “The Rolling Stones are not just a band; they are a way of life." That ad man was of course tapping into the old adage of jazz: if you don't live it, it won't come through your music. In the '90s, The New Thing of the '60s came back with tremendous energy and no one embodied that energy better than Charles Gayle. At almost 70 years old, he still plays with ...

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