The Squid's Ear Magazine


Gayle, Charles: Unto I Am (Les Disques Victo)

"The first completely solo Charles Gayle recording was recorded during a break in the Victoriaville Festival in 1994. Gayle went into a Montreal studio and played tenor on three tracks and bass clarinet on one, and preached while accomp...
 

Price: $15.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 4.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Charles Gayle-bass clarinet, drums, piano, tenor saxophone, voice


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 77740500325

Label: Les Disques Victo
Catalog ID: VICCD032
Squidco Product Code: 23971

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 1994
Country: Canada
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded at Silent Sound Studio, in Montreal, Quebec, on September 3rd, 1994).

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"The first completely solo Charles Gayle recording was recorded during a break in the Victoriaville Festival in 1994. Gayle went into a Montreal studio and played tenor on three tracks and bass clarinet on one, and preached while accompanying himself on drums on one track and piano on another. What does it sound like? The tenor improvisations you can guess: it is a kind of bleating unto the heavens from the soul through the bell of the horn. This is no light statement; Gayle can play tenor saxophone with the best of them. He understands all of the intricacies of musical architecture implicitly, but it's of no consequence here. This is prayer. Indeed, all these pieces are prayer in its purest form: direct communication between Gayle and his God. It doesn't matter so much whether they are understood by the rest of humanity so much as they are heard and encouraged, in our way, to speak in the same manner. On "Eden Lost," Mr. Gayle is playing the piano and preaching fire and brimstonefrom the Bible. He is laying out the salvation plan of Jesus Christ while improvising like Keith Tippett more than Cecil Taylor. There is more openness in Gayle's playing than Taylor's, though at times it is just as intense. On "Pastures Color," Gayle is mining the territory first veined by Albert Ayler. In Gayle's phrasing are hymns and sacred songs interspersed with cries from the heart that express the bond of love between God and man -- in Gayle's view. Unto I Am may not be everybody's cup of shed blood, but there can be no denying that is inspired, divinely or otherwise."-Thom Jurek


Artist Biographies

"Charles Gayle (born February 28, 1939) is an American free jazz musician. Initially known as a saxophonist who came to prominence in the 1990s after decades of obscurity, Gayle also performs as pianist, bass clarinetist, bassist, and percussionist.

Charles Gayle was born in Buffalo, New York. Some of his history has been unclear due to his reluctance to talk about his life in interviews. He briefly taught music at the University at Buffalo before relocating to New York City during the early 1970s.

Gayle was homeless for approximately twenty years, playing saxophone on street corners and subway platforms around New York City. He has described making a conscious decision to become homeless: "I had to shed my history, my life, everything had to stop right there, and if you live through this, good, and if you don't, you don't. I can't do the rent, the odd jobs, the little rooms, scratchin', and all that, no!" At the same time, this allowed Gayle to devote most of his time to playing music, although he often earned less than US$3 a day from busking:

First of all, I played to play because I need to play. Second of all, the money, a dollar meant a lot to me at that time. Playing out there is obviously different than playing on a stage but that is so rich out there. It's such a whole 'nother world of playin'. I mean I used to walk from Times Square, for instance, all the way to Wall Street playin'. I could walk back and never stop playing. I didn't think about it as anything other than what it was. These were people and I wasn't overly concerned with what they thought. I was playing, I had to play. Also I had to eat some way and I'm not the type to put my hand out. I'd stand there playing with a coffee cup sometime and people would put money in my coffee [Laughs] and you don't get that on the stage. That's beautiful.

When Gayle first set out on the streets, he did not imagine he would remain homeless as long as he did, although he estimates that this period lasted closer to fifteen years than twenty.

In 1988, he gained fame through a trio of albums recorded in one week and released by Swedish label, Silkheart Records. Since then he has become a major figure in free jazz, recording for labels including Black Saint, Knitting Factory Records, FMP, and Clean Feed. He has also taught music at Bennington College.

Gayle's music is spiritual, and heavily inspired by the Old and New Testaments. Gayle explains, "I want the people to enjoy the music and if it, in anyway can suggest something about the Lord, for their benefit, that would be first in my mind." He has explicitly dedicated several albums to God. His childhood was influenced by religion, and his musical roots trace to black gospel music. He has performed and recorded with Cecil Taylor, William Parker, and Rashied Ali. Gayle's most celebrated work to date is the album Touchin' on Trane (FMP) with Parker and Ali, which received the "Crown" accolade from the Penguin Guide to Jazz.

Though he established his reputation primarily as a tenor saxophonist, he has increasingly turned to other instruments, notably the piano (which was, in fact, his original instrument) and alto saxophone. More controversially, he has sometimes included lengthy spoken-word addresses to the audience in his concerts touching on his political and religious beliefs: "I understand that when you start speaking about faith or religion, they want you to keep it in a box, but I'm not going to do that. Not because I'm taking advantage of being a musician, I'm the same everywhere, and people have to understand that." Gayle sometimes performs as a mime, "Streets the Clown." "Streets means to me, first, a freedom from Charles. I'm not good at being the center of attentionÉ. It's a liberation from Charles, even though it's me on the stage, it's a different person."

In 2001, Gayle recorded an album entitled Jazz Solo Piano. It consisted mostly of straightforward jazz standards, and is a response to critics who charge that free jazz musicians cannot play bebop. In 2006, Gayle followed up with a second album of solo piano, this time featuring original material, entitled Time Zones."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Gayle)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Innocent 13:22

2. Pastures Colors 11:50

3. Eden Lost 10:53

4. Good Shepherd 11:25

5. Childs Love 10:59

Related Categories of Interest:

May 2017
Victo
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Solo Artist Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Les Disques Victo.


Recommended & Related Releases:



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Various Artists (Bauer, Casserley, Florodos, De Joode, Kujala, Narvesen, Taramontana, Schiaffini, Wachsmann)
SoundScapes Festival # 3 - Munich 2021 Schwere Reiter [2 CDs]
(Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))
14 musicians from 9 different countries in various collaborative groupings performing acoustic & electronic free improvisations, the focus on soundscape and limited to 15 minute performances, developed by saxophonist Harri Sjöström in 2013 as "SoundScapes Festivals" and presented in Helsinki and now in Munich as part of the art-project "Aspects of Free Improvisation 2021".
Oxley, Tony
Unreleased (1974 to 2016)
(Discus)
The second in Discus Music's "Unreleased" series selected from percussionist and electronics legend Tony Oxley personal collection, here in three configurations: a quintet with Barry Guy, Dave Holdsworth, Howard Riley and Paul Rutherford; a quintet with Howard Riley, Larry Stabbins, Phillip Wachsmann and Hugh Metcalfe; and a duo with Stefan Hoekler.
Melford's, Myra Fire And Water Quintet
For The Love Of Fire And Water
(RogueArt)
Few quintets deserve the designation of super-group more than pianist Myra Melford's quintet with Mary Halvorson on guitar, Ingrid Laubrock on tenor & soprano saxophones, Tomeka Reid on cello and Susie Ibarra on drums & percussion, performing Melford's wonderfully inventive 10-part composition.
Sassetti, Bernardo Trio
Culturgest, 2007
(Clean Feed)
A recently discovered 2007 live concert from Portuguese pianist & composer Bernardo Sassetti's Trio with Carlos Barretto on double bass and Alexandre Frazao on drums, celebrating the trio's then 10th anniversary in a performance at Grande Auditório da Culturgeste in Lisbon, an excellent example of the great skill and dexterity of this much-missed pianist and trio's work.
Taylor, Cecil
Music From Two Continents feat Stanko, Rava, Frank Wright, Lyons, Borca, Barker, Hampel
(Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))
A truly wild concert of free jazz from Cecil Taylor's transatlantic orchestra, captured live at the 1984 Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw, Poland, bringing together impressive improvisers from the US--William Parker, John Tchicai, Jimmy Lyons, Karen Borca, Frank Wright, & Henry Martinez--with European Free Jazz leaders Tomasz Stank, Enrico Rava, Conrd Bauer & Günter Hampel.
Brotzmann, Peter / Lonberg-Holm, Fred
Memories Of A Tunicate
(Relative Pitch)
While both improvisers were in New York City for the 2019 Vision Festival, multi-reedist and European Free Improv legend Peter Brötzmann met Chicago cellist and electronics artist Fred Lonberg-Holm to record their 3rd album together, their 1st album in the studio a diverse set of incredible concentration, with Brötzmann performing on tenor saxophone, woodwind, and clarinet.
Toyozumi, Sabu / Rick Countryman / Simon Tan / Stella Ignacio / Isla Antinero
JYA-NE
(Self Released)
Four configurations of free jazz recorded live during a 2017 visit by Japanese drummer Sabu Toyozumi to Manila: first in a duo with alto saxophonist Rick Countryman; then in a trio with Toyozumi on erhu and Simon Tan on acoustic bass; then a quintet with Simon Tan on electric bass, vocalist Stella Ignacio and trombonist Isla Antinero; and last as a trio with Countryman, Tan, and Toyozumi.
Braxton, Anthony
Solo (Victoriaville) 2017
(Les Disques Victo)
On the 30th anniversary of the Victo Festival Anthony Braxton took to the stage for a magnificent solo performance on the alto sax, performing 8 spontaneous compositions and an 8+ minute version of "Body and Soul", seamlessly crossing lyrical and complex approaches to the horn using his unique intervallic, trimbral and diagrammatic language, a stunning and embraceable accomplishment.
Eye Contact (Heyner / Sawyer / Lavelle)
War Rug
(KMB Jazz)
The New York free improvising trio of Matthew Heyner (Test, Malkuth) on bass, Matt Lavelle on trumpet and clarinet and Ryan Sawyer (Tall Firs, Stars Like Fleas) on drums in the follow-up to their 2005 Utech double CD "Embracing The Tide / Making Eye Contact With God", an impressive release of expressive technique and ritualistic drive.
Plimley, Paul Trio
Safe-Crackers
(Les Disques Victo)
Hard Rubber Orchestra
Cruel Yet Fair
(Les Disques Victo)
Sharp, Elliott / Zeena Parkins
>Blackburst<
(Les Disques Victo)
Schiano, Mario (Schiano / Guy / Lovens / Parker / Tramontana)
Social Security
(Les Disques Victo)
Rova
Ptow!!
(Les Disques Victo)
The West Coast Rova Saxophone quartet in a 7 track studio album from 1995, from Jon Raskin on alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, sopranino saxophone, Steve Adams on alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone, Bruce Ackley on soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone and Larry Ochs on tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone.
Kovac, Boris
Anamnesis: Ecumenical Mysteries
(Les Disques Victo)
Deane, J.A.
Nomad
(Les Disques Victo)
Non Credo
Happy Wretched Family
(Les Disques Victo)
Rieu, Yannick
Sweet Geom
(Les Disques Victo)
A live concert at the 11Th Festival International De Musique Actuelle De Victoriaville on May 19th, 1994, from the free improvising trio of Frederik Alarie on contrabass, Paul Leger on drum, Yannick Rieu on tenor saxophone.
Ellis, Lisle / Cauley / Robinson / Ruthier / Ochs / McPhee / Spearman
Elevations
(Les Disques Victo)
Bauer, Konrad Trio (Bauer / Sommer / Kowald)
Three Wheels - Four Directions
(Les Disques Victo)
Plimley, Paul / Lisle Ellis / Gregg Bendian
Noir
(Les Disques Victo)
Bauer, Konrad
Toronto Tone
(Les Disques Victo)
Mitchell, Roscoe
Songs In The Wind
(Les Disques Victo)
Crispell, Marilynn
Labyrinths
(Les Disques Victo)
Teitelbaum, Richard / Carlos Zingaro
The Sea Between
(Les Disques Victo)
Parker, Evan ElectroAcoustic Septet
Seven
(Les Disques Victo)
UK multi-reed master Evan Parker brings an all-star electroacoustic septet to the 2014 Victoriaville Festival for the massive and wonderfully detailed two part composition "Seven", performed with Peter Evans, Okkyung Lee, George Lewis, Ikue Mori, Sam Pluta, and Ned Rothenberg.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC