Charl Gayle - Roulette

Contents:

• CHARL GAYLE
• CHARL GAYLE
• JAZZ: CHARL GAYLE
• CHARL GAYLE - SOLO
• CHARL GAYLE
• CHARL GAYLE

CHARL GAYLE

Charl Gayle Mician - All About Jazz. Charl Gayle blew down wh hurrine force - the pun is too obv - out of Buffalo.

CHARL GAYLE

In the late Eighti Silkheart Rerds rerd three discs him featurg Gayle's ecstatic, holy holy tenor. For the enigmatic German FMP label he rerd the all-time classic Touch' on Trane wh micians as talented and passnate as he: bassist William Parker and dmmer Rashied Ali, a livg nnectn wh the Coltrane legacy that Gayle so dynamilly extends here. But this disc beme somethg of an anomaly the Gayle disgraphy: most of the others were much more fur.

Ttaments has a rough lyricism that is ptivatg; the other two make adro e of doubled strgs om bassist Vattel Cherry and William Parker on some discs Gayle himself plays vla, bass claret, other oddments. Jazz Mician of the Day: Charl Gayle.

JAZZ: CHARL GAYLE

Charl Gayle ma his first signifint impact on the ee jazz scene wh a seri of crilly acclaimed New York performanc at the Kntg Factory the mid- to late '80s. Like Ayler, Gayle employs a huge tone which, more often than not, he spls to s dividual harmonic ponents. Timbral distortn is a key aspect of Gayle's work.

CHARL GAYLE - SOLO

Gayle is also pable of great lyricism, imbued wh the same bracg tensy prent his high-energy work. Gayle began playg mic at the age of ne. Gayle was trigued by bebop; hearg Charlie Parker was a ccial experience.

Gayle attempted to learn nventnal harmony by analyzg sheet mic and workg thgs out on a piano. Gayle moved om Buffalo to New York Cy the '60s, where he beme volved the cy's nascent ee jazz movement.

Gayle reportedly tght a jazz urse at the State Universy of New York at Buffalo 1969, where one of his stunts was the saxophonist Jay Beckenste. There is at least one acunt of Gayle playg wh dmmer Rashied Ali's group around 1973, but ltle else is known about his activi durg this perd (he is not cled to go to tails when asked by terviewers about his past).

CHARL GAYLE

Gayle took to playg his horn on the streets and the subways, relyg on donatns om passers-by for e.

Gayle lived a maly prer existence for the next twenty years.

Still, Gayle scuffled, though he was eventually able to rent a small apartment on New York's Lower East Si.

CHARL GAYLE

In 1988, Gayle rerd a seri of albums for the Swedish-based Silkheart label. In the '90s, Gayle took to performg on piano and bass claret basilly the same style that he displays on tenor, though the latter clearly remas his strongt stment.

Gayle's preferred ensemble stmentatn ually nsists of himself, a bassist, and a dmmer.

By the turn of the lennium, Gayle's ncerts had taken on aspects of performance art. Gayle began drsg as a character he lled "Streets the Clown, " plete wh stume and face pat, wherpon he would perform his mic and preach a relig msage to his dience.

Ined, Gayle's -ncert exprsns of his relig and polil views are a source of dismay to some crics and fans, and threaten at tim to overshadow his mic. Charl Gayle has received a lot of love on FJB, and for good reason. From tly humble begngs, Charl Gayle has bee a legend.

That romantic tge only holds, however, if you foc on the unpromisg qut for self-realizatn through mic and strip of the hardships endured a and a half of homelsns, whereby Gayle survived by bkg a fashn more likely to repel than attract the average passer-by.

This, of urse, was how Gayle refed his sound, which li somewhere between eicism of Charlie Parker, the spirualy of Albert Ayler and late-stage John Coltrane, and the off-the-walls adventurism of Arthur Doyle.