Charles Gayle

Charles Gayle made his first significant impact on the free jazz scene with a series of critically acclaimed New York performances at the Knitting Factory in the mid- to late '80s. The tenor saxophonist's hyper-kinetic free expressionism drew on stylistic devices pioneered in the '60s by the late free jazz icon Albert Ayler. Like Ayler, Gayle employed a huge tone which, more often than not, was split into individual harmonic components. Timbral distortion was a key aspect of Gayle's work. His improvisations featured long, vibrating, free gospel melodies full of huge intervallic leaps, screaming multiphonics, and a density of line that revealed a remarkable dexterity in all registers of his horn (especially the altissimo). Gayle was also capable of great lyricism, imbued with the same bracing intensity present in his high-energy work. Gayle was the son of steelworker Charles and mother Frances Gayle. He began playing music at the age of nine. Save for a couple of years of piano lessons, he was self-taught. Piano was his only instrument until he picked up a saxophone at 19. As a teenager in the '50s, he listened to jazz. He was intrigued by bebop, and hearing Charlie Parker was crucial to his musical development. Gayle attempted to learn conventional harmony by analyzing sheet music and working things out on a piano. Church services had a profound effect on him. After attending Fredonia State Teachers College, Gayle returned to Buffalo to begin a music career. He played trumpet and piano in local clubs before concentrating more on tenor saxophone in self-produced concerts; he also worked at a Westinghouse factory and later at a bank providing loans for Black-owned businesses. From 1970 to 1973, he was an assistant professor of music at the State University of New York at Buffalo (now the University at Buffalo). But, weary of institutional responsibilities, he left academia and moved to New York City to pursue music exclusively. He had been there for almost a decade when he decided to live on the streets. There is at least one account of Gayle playing with drummer Rashied Ali's group around 1973, but little else is known about his activities during this period (he was not inclined to go into details when asked by interviewers about his past). Gayle took to playing his horn on the streets and in the subways, relying on donations from passers-by for income. He lived a precarious existence for the next 20 years. Following his "discovery" in the '80s, his gigs and tours coordinated by the Knitting Factory began to earn him a modest, relatively steady income, and he was eventually able to rent a small apartment on New York's Lower East Side. In 1988 (while homeless), Gayle recorded a trio of well-received albums for the Swedish-based Silkheart label -- 1988's Always Born and Homeless, and 1989's Spirits Before. During the '90s, subsequent recordings for Knitting Factory (Repent, Kingdom Come, Ancient of Days), Black Saint (Consecration, Daily Bread), and FMP (Touchin' On Trane, with bassist William Parker and Ali), all won critical and popular notice in jazz and vanguard rock communities globally. The decade also saw Gayle take to performing on piano and bass clarinet in basically the same style that he displayed on tenor, though the latter clearly remained his strongest instrument. Gayle's preferred ensemble instrumentation usually consisted of himself, a bassist, and a drummer. His concerts were almost wholly improvised, and a single improvisation could last the length of a set. By the turn of the millennium, Gayle's concerts had taken on aspects of performance art. He began dressing as a character he called "Streets the Clown," complete with costume and face paint, whereupon he would perform his music and preach a religious message to his audience. Indeed, Gayle's in-concert expressions of his religious and political views were a source of dismay to some critics and fans, but he remained steadfast. In 2001 he released Jazz Solo Piano on Knitting Factory, offering his radical approach to standards. He followed with the live No Bills, playing tenor saxophone and piano in Moscow and Arkhangelsk. 2006's Time Zones for Tompkins Square marked his first solo piano studio offering with seven of his own compositions. He issued a pair of acclaimed titles on Portugal's Clean Feed in 2005's Shout! (with bassist Sirone and drummer Gerald Cleaver) and 2006's Consider the Lilies, with bassist Hilliard Greene and drummer Jay Rosen. He re-teamed with Parker and Ali for 2008's Live at Crescendo and followed it with Our Souls: Live in Vilnius on No Business. Gayle played alto and piano on the date, and was backed by American bassist Dominic Duval and Lithuanian drummer Arkady Gotesman. In 2012 he released 2012's Streets; its cover photo was of Gayle adorned in his "Streets the Clown" costume focusing his music on the topic of homelessness. That same year, ESP-Disk released Look Up, an archival 1994 live performance of the saxophonist, drummer Michael Wimberley, and bassist Michael Bisio paying homage to some of the artists who influenced him. In 2015, Gayle released Christ Everlasting, a live trio date from Warsaw, Poland with German drummer Klaus Kugel and Polish double bassist Kasawery Wójciński. The nine-track set reflected his current performing aesthetic sequencing his own compositions alongside readings of sacred and jazz standards. He returned to Warsaw in 2016 to perform at the same club. Backed once more by bassist Wójciński, they enlisted notable German free jazz drummer Max Andrzejewski and released the gig as Solar System in 2017. Later that year, Gayle, Sardinian double bassist Manolo Cabras, and Italian drummer Giovani Barcella entered "Motormusic Studio" in Mechelen, Belgium and emerged with 2019's The Alto Sessions, and in November, double bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders performed two nights at Cafe OTO in London. Otoroku released the recorded gigs as Seasons Changing in 2019. These two outings proved the final recordings released during his lifetime. Gayle was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2020 and was looked after by his son. He died on September 7, 2023, at the age of 84.
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