REMEMBERING
Charles Gayle
1939 - 2023
Charles Ennis Gayle, Jr., was born Feb 28, 1939, in Buffalo, NY, as the second of two children of Charles and Frances Gayle. His father worked for many decades at Bethlehem, having migrated north in the mid-1930s from the small town of Forkland in western Alabama. Charles grew up a musical prodigy. In his youth he studied voice, violin, piano, trumpet, and bass. He was also a star basketball player and high jumper in high school and received a basketball scholarship to attend Fredonia State Teachers College. After one year, he returned to Buffalo to work in a factory while playing trumpet in bebop groups. Around that time he first began experimenting on tenor saxophone, the instrument for which he became renowned. By the mid-1960s he was leading his own bands and his prominence on the music scene there resulted in him being hired as a professor of music at the University of Buffalo. He taught there 1970-1973, before departing for New York City.
In New York he frequented the African cultural center, The East, but was often found playing in Grand Central Station. In 1984, Charles Gayle was featured prominently in the film ‘Rising Tones Cross” that documented the first Sound Unity Festival. This led to tours of Germany with bassist Peter Kowald and later he was a regularly featured artist at the Knitting Factory. He recorded his first record in 1988 on Silkheart “Always Born” and dozens more followed through affiliations with William Parker, Rashied Ali, and Milford Graves but primarily through his own groups which often included younger musicians such as David Pleasant, Hilliard Greene, Michael Wimberly, Michael TA Thompson, Gerald Cleaver, Vattel Cherry, Michael Bisio, Larry Roland, etc. His records “Touchin’ on Trane” and “Repent” stand out within a discography that has few equals. His solo piano records of the 2000s give proof to his boundless creativity. In 2014 Charles Gayle received the Vision Festival LifeTime Achievement Award. He has left behind a monumental legacy as one of the most distinct artistic voices of our time.
-Cisco Bradley
In New York he frequented the African cultural center, The East, but was often found playing in Grand Central Station. In 1984, Charles Gayle was featured prominently in the film ‘Rising Tones Cross” that documented the first Sound Unity Festival. This led to tours of Germany with bassist Peter Kowald and later he was a regularly featured artist at the Knitting Factory. He recorded his first record in 1988 on Silkheart “Always Born” and dozens more followed through affiliations with William Parker, Rashied Ali, and Milford Graves but primarily through his own groups which often included younger musicians such as David Pleasant, Hilliard Greene, Michael Wimberly, Michael TA Thompson, Gerald Cleaver, Vattel Cherry, Michael Bisio, Larry Roland, etc. His records “Touchin’ on Trane” and “Repent” stand out within a discography that has few equals. His solo piano records of the 2000s give proof to his boundless creativity. In 2014 Charles Gayle received the Vision Festival LifeTime Achievement Award. He has left behind a monumental legacy as one of the most distinct artistic voices of our time.
-Cisco Bradley
Charles Gayle, from William Parker’s ‘Conversations’
“Why couldn't I"
“I like all the instruments, you know we all do. I wanted to play them all one day. I got a trumpet and I really practiced a lot. I played it for years. Then I got a violin and played that. I didn't play guitar but just about all the rest of them. I got a clarinet once and I got the basics, it was just that I was playing trumpet and I finally had gotten my embouchure together, and I thought I would try to be like Clifford Brown, but that didn't work out too good. I never thought about it as being hard or anything, because I thought, why couldn't I? When I heard Louis Armstrong I wanted to play like that so I got me a trumpet and then I got tenor saxophone because I had heard Coleman Hawkins. This was before Coltrane and all. So when I heard of all of them, I wanted to be like them too. I learned and went from person to person and music to music, it was a challenge to me. I couldn't understand how I couldn't be able to play all of that so I tried to learn how to do it and that's how I learned to play a lot of different instruments, because I didn't feel good if I couldn't play them, so I just learned them.
Charles Gayle Talks with Ken Weiss
Because of my faith
It’s just a purity, I don’t want to play like anybody else. I think because of my faith, being Christian, I just asked to be guided and I want to continue to be guided and just touch places I haven’t been. Other people may have been there, but just touch on good places. I want to do what makes sense. To me, it’s easy to be what we humans call nonsensical - just laying anywhere and doing anything. And that is still music, it’s not any less valid than any other form. I just want to be clear to myself and clear in purpose.
I don’t feel that anybody owes me something. The only thing on my birth certificate is Charles Gayle. I have to take care of myself. I love people even if they mock me. If I have something, I’ll give it to them.
I don’t overthink every note to say, ‘Oh, this is good for God.’ I don’t do that, I ask to be guided by Him and make me more what He would like me to be. It’s not more than that, and what I play, prayerfully, isn’t offensive to God, and if it is, let me know in Your way and bring it to my heart and my mind to know that. I do play what they call church hymns, but I also improvise.
I think there’s a difference between playing free and being free. Anybody can play free but are you free? Otherwise you just learn the vocabulary that represents it. Personally, and I’m not bragging, I’m a free person inside, and I don’t say that’s always good. I’ve said before that can work against you, but that’s just who I am. So it’s a statement for freedom, there is a lot of sadness too, and joy.
Spirituality is my whole life and I’m talking about who I think is God. It isn’t just about music; my entire life is about God, about Christ. It is the way I walk, the way I conduct myself as a person. It’s everything to me.
Charles Gayle, from William Parker’s ‘Conversations’
Personal Music – a school that never ends
If Louis Armstrong was here and the music was vibrant, and the people were still into that - I would applaud that. The music is just beautiful, why change it? But having said that, I feel that the scene has changed. Most of the music during my time wasn't necessarily learned in schools. There was a different input in how to create the music. So I feel like the music had to open up. Mainly I am known as an avant garde artist, but I am not limited to that. And I don’t like that terminology, I am a musician, we are all musicians. I would like to see things open up more, even the musicians who are in school. To start taking a more personal approach to music as opposed to following the so-called set thing that is out there.
It’s good what’s out there, it's just that I would like to see a little more personal stuff happening. I think it would be more accurate to think of this music as personal music, instead of avant-garde. But we need venues for it. The music will always be here, but we need more venues, and institutions to deal with this more personal music as opposed to just those who are coming up playing in a more technical way. I would like to investigate this area even more, which would mean investigating the mind because it's not just about the music, it's about our thinking process. There is no yardstick for measuring certain things. I would like to be up under that myself because it will help me grow more and think of more things, and scrutinize the music even more. I want to be saying all of this in a positive way. It's all a school that never ends. We can never stop learning or becoming critical of each other, in a constructive way, to broaden the music, cause it's forever, it never ends.
Music is for everybody
When I was coming up, all the music was in my neighborhood, up until the 60's all the jazz and music that black people made was supported by black people because it was all in the neighborhood. But what happened in the 60's, across the nation, things changed as a result of what they called ‘white flight.’ The neighborhoods changed. The money left the neighborhoods. The clubs closed because there wasn’t support, even before people who were not black had been coming into the neighborhood. When I grew up all the people I played for were black people. But it's changed now and that concerns me. In a way it does, in a way it doesn't. Because most of the music, especially jazz or the bulk of it, is not in the black neighborhoods any more. A lot of people don't want to leave their neighborhood to do anything anymore. There are still black clubs in the black community but they aren’t as prevalent as they were when I was young, say years ago. We don't have control of certain things. But it does not bother me, for me the music is for everybody. I have a love for everybody in the world regardless of color. That's just me so I'll put it like that, I don't like what everybody does, but I love people because they're human and everybody doesn't like what I do, so it goes both ways. It concerns me the lack of black people in the audience. When I am in Europe, it doesn't concern me so much, but when I am in America the lack of black people does concern me. I do understand to a degree, why it is that way, so I don't get too bent out of shape because in my mind I have solved my problem. I relate as a human being. I had to get my solution so as not to keep asking what the solution is. It doesn't solve the whole problem. The only thing I see that solves it, is freedom for people who are considered second class.
“THINK" – “we are more than that’’
Musicians are human beings concerned about all things and if you look at them as human beings, not just musicians, you'll get it. They go to work as anybody else goes to work and they come home. They are enamored with the music and they are also feeling that it's really a strange thing – why do I have to keep saying Black? There is this thing hanging over us. I don't know if we talk about it enough. The basic perception of a black person living in America, whatever we do we are in some kind of ghetto. I don't fault the people for having that concept because that's the concept that's in the papers, the concept that's in the books, but we're more than that. Because we're not in those books, in the general books of psychology, philosophy, general art, books on medicine or advancing certain themes or inventions, we're under something and it's very difficult to escape. If everybody was a thinker I think it would be a better world, you would be freer.
I think everybody can be a thinker but everybody takes time to do it. You see you can't get it in school. They don't teach you to think freely in school. I think they teach you not to think. My mother said “think, I don't care if you've got an education, think”! Think about what you're saying, think about it in the broadest terms.
“Why couldn't I"
“I like all the instruments, you know we all do. I wanted to play them all one day. I got a trumpet and I really practiced a lot. I played it for years. Then I got a violin and played that. I didn't play guitar but just about all the rest of them. I got a clarinet once and I got the basics, it was just that I was playing trumpet and I finally had gotten my embouchure together, and I thought I would try to be like Clifford Brown, but that didn't work out too good. I never thought about it as being hard or anything, because I thought, why couldn't I? When I heard Louis Armstrong I wanted to play like that so I got me a trumpet and then I got tenor saxophone because I had heard Coleman Hawkins. This was before Coltrane and all. So when I heard of all of them, I wanted to be like them too. I learned and went from person to person and music to music, it was a challenge to me. I couldn't understand how I couldn't be able to play all of that so I tried to learn how to do it and that's how I learned to play a lot of different instruments, because I didn't feel good if I couldn't play them, so I just learned them.
Charles Gayle Talks with Ken Weiss
Because of my faith
It’s just a purity, I don’t want to play like anybody else. I think because of my faith, being Christian, I just asked to be guided and I want to continue to be guided and just touch places I haven’t been. Other people may have been there, but just touch on good places. I want to do what makes sense. To me, it’s easy to be what we humans call nonsensical - just laying anywhere and doing anything. And that is still music, it’s not any less valid than any other form. I just want to be clear to myself and clear in purpose.
I don’t feel that anybody owes me something. The only thing on my birth certificate is Charles Gayle. I have to take care of myself. I love people even if they mock me. If I have something, I’ll give it to them.
I don’t overthink every note to say, ‘Oh, this is good for God.’ I don’t do that, I ask to be guided by Him and make me more what He would like me to be. It’s not more than that, and what I play, prayerfully, isn’t offensive to God, and if it is, let me know in Your way and bring it to my heart and my mind to know that. I do play what they call church hymns, but I also improvise.
I think there’s a difference between playing free and being free. Anybody can play free but are you free? Otherwise you just learn the vocabulary that represents it. Personally, and I’m not bragging, I’m a free person inside, and I don’t say that’s always good. I’ve said before that can work against you, but that’s just who I am. So it’s a statement for freedom, there is a lot of sadness too, and joy.
Spirituality is my whole life and I’m talking about who I think is God. It isn’t just about music; my entire life is about God, about Christ. It is the way I walk, the way I conduct myself as a person. It’s everything to me.
Charles Gayle, from William Parker’s ‘Conversations’
Personal Music – a school that never ends
If Louis Armstrong was here and the music was vibrant, and the people were still into that - I would applaud that. The music is just beautiful, why change it? But having said that, I feel that the scene has changed. Most of the music during my time wasn't necessarily learned in schools. There was a different input in how to create the music. So I feel like the music had to open up. Mainly I am known as an avant garde artist, but I am not limited to that. And I don’t like that terminology, I am a musician, we are all musicians. I would like to see things open up more, even the musicians who are in school. To start taking a more personal approach to music as opposed to following the so-called set thing that is out there.
It’s good what’s out there, it's just that I would like to see a little more personal stuff happening. I think it would be more accurate to think of this music as personal music, instead of avant-garde. But we need venues for it. The music will always be here, but we need more venues, and institutions to deal with this more personal music as opposed to just those who are coming up playing in a more technical way. I would like to investigate this area even more, which would mean investigating the mind because it's not just about the music, it's about our thinking process. There is no yardstick for measuring certain things. I would like to be up under that myself because it will help me grow more and think of more things, and scrutinize the music even more. I want to be saying all of this in a positive way. It's all a school that never ends. We can never stop learning or becoming critical of each other, in a constructive way, to broaden the music, cause it's forever, it never ends.
Music is for everybody
When I was coming up, all the music was in my neighborhood, up until the 60's all the jazz and music that black people made was supported by black people because it was all in the neighborhood. But what happened in the 60's, across the nation, things changed as a result of what they called ‘white flight.’ The neighborhoods changed. The money left the neighborhoods. The clubs closed because there wasn’t support, even before people who were not black had been coming into the neighborhood. When I grew up all the people I played for were black people. But it's changed now and that concerns me. In a way it does, in a way it doesn't. Because most of the music, especially jazz or the bulk of it, is not in the black neighborhoods any more. A lot of people don't want to leave their neighborhood to do anything anymore. There are still black clubs in the black community but they aren’t as prevalent as they were when I was young, say years ago. We don't have control of certain things. But it does not bother me, for me the music is for everybody. I have a love for everybody in the world regardless of color. That's just me so I'll put it like that, I don't like what everybody does, but I love people because they're human and everybody doesn't like what I do, so it goes both ways. It concerns me the lack of black people in the audience. When I am in Europe, it doesn't concern me so much, but when I am in America the lack of black people does concern me. I do understand to a degree, why it is that way, so I don't get too bent out of shape because in my mind I have solved my problem. I relate as a human being. I had to get my solution so as not to keep asking what the solution is. It doesn't solve the whole problem. The only thing I see that solves it, is freedom for people who are considered second class.
“THINK" – “we are more than that’’
Musicians are human beings concerned about all things and if you look at them as human beings, not just musicians, you'll get it. They go to work as anybody else goes to work and they come home. They are enamored with the music and they are also feeling that it's really a strange thing – why do I have to keep saying Black? There is this thing hanging over us. I don't know if we talk about it enough. The basic perception of a black person living in America, whatever we do we are in some kind of ghetto. I don't fault the people for having that concept because that's the concept that's in the papers, the concept that's in the books, but we're more than that. Because we're not in those books, in the general books of psychology, philosophy, general art, books on medicine or advancing certain themes or inventions, we're under something and it's very difficult to escape. If everybody was a thinker I think it would be a better world, you would be freer.
I think everybody can be a thinker but everybody takes time to do it. You see you can't get it in school. They don't teach you to think freely in school. I think they teach you not to think. My mother said “think, I don't care if you've got an education, think”! Think about what you're saying, think about it in the broadest terms.
Charles Gayle - his immense genius was a gift to a suffering world. Yet a healing music flowed like a river through him. Charles Gayle, was a master musician for all time. His music called upon the entire history of African music bringing it all into the Present tense. His music is not based on a linear time concept of ‘progress’, that is, his Free music does not replace all of the great African or African American music that came before. It is a part of the whole spectrum of Music. His music reflects the church, the streets, the liberation movement, and his entire experience as an African Human being in America.
I have heard him play the piano, the trumpet, violin, the bass and all the saxophones. He sang the blues and played spirituals. If you listen you can hear all of this in a single sound. He was a philosopher, and a keeper of the history. Charles Gayle did not play music for himself, but to serve. He has said about his character “Streets” that he dons that attire so that he can get out of the way to let the Music shine. His intention is to move and inspire, and he dedicated his life to this goal.
He was born February 28, 1939 in Buffalo NY. He loved, played and taught his music and philosophy throughout his Life. We share deep condolences with his family and close friends who are feeling his loss on a deep personal level, including his sons, Ekwambu Gayle, Michael Gayle, Dwayne Jahn Gayle.
He left this world for a better world on September 5, 2023. Let us continue to listen, to strive to understand and learn from music, lessons in love, dedication and an unconquerable spirit.
With Love and sorrow for all of our loss,
Patricia Nicholson & William Parker
AFA staff and Board
I have heard him play the piano, the trumpet, violin, the bass and all the saxophones. He sang the blues and played spirituals. If you listen you can hear all of this in a single sound. He was a philosopher, and a keeper of the history. Charles Gayle did not play music for himself, but to serve. He has said about his character “Streets” that he dons that attire so that he can get out of the way to let the Music shine. His intention is to move and inspire, and he dedicated his life to this goal.
He was born February 28, 1939 in Buffalo NY. He loved, played and taught his music and philosophy throughout his Life. We share deep condolences with his family and close friends who are feeling his loss on a deep personal level, including his sons, Ekwambu Gayle, Michael Gayle, Dwayne Jahn Gayle.
He left this world for a better world on September 5, 2023. Let us continue to listen, to strive to understand and learn from music, lessons in love, dedication and an unconquerable spirit.
With Love and sorrow for all of our loss,
Patricia Nicholson & William Parker
AFA staff and Board
