As with many of his contemporaries, Charles Gayle has periodically garnered claims that he is incapable of playing the saxophone in a conventional manner. I first recall reading about the complaints in the liner notes to one of his early Silkheart albums. Gayle’s paid the unfounded criticisms no mind, preferring instead press forward along his own idiosyncratic path with little regard for cajoling non-believers into the fold. Oddly enough though, the past few years have found him in moods increasingly receptive to traditional jazz song forms. Shout!, recorded in 2003 and released last year on the Clean Feed label, included bent renderings of three standards. Similarly, this concert set, taped at the titular Swedish venue February of this year, features four more stabs at the canon along with a less eccentric foray into Ayler’s “Ghosts” via a closing medley. Fidelity is a bit uncooked, but more than listenable throughout.
Demonstrative of another recent development, Gayle sticks solely to alto, a white plastic model mirroring the one used by Ornette on his classic Atlantic sides. Tenor stays in the case. With him on stage are two familiar colleagues: drummer Michael Wimberly who actually made his debut playing free jazz under Gayle’s employ in the early 90s and bassist Gerald Benson last heard with the saxophonist on the FMP date Precious Soul. Benson’s propensity for fleshy walking lines also lends several tracks more of a structured feel. Wimberly is still a bit of the basher he’s always been, eclipsing some of Benson’s complexity under the barrage of his heavier strokes, but his brio and energy fit with the general athletic thrust of the band.
Introductions dispense swiftly and the three launch into a galloping rendition of the bop truffle “Cherokee.” Gayle spends precious little time flexing the theme before blasting away atop a churning rhythm and largely concerning himself with loosing velocious vertical torrents. “Softly As in a Morning Sunrise” unfolds in similarly desultory fashion. Gayle states the familiar melody sparingly as if to prove he can and soon busts the spigot with another spray of whinnying peals against Wimberly’s dark mallets and a bottom-dwelling arco drone. Benson’s bulbous solo on the piece proves him a distant second fiddle to the epochal Wilbur Ware extrapolation, but it’s still good for variety’s sake.
As the set progresses, the band continues to gel and it’s an instant trip to hear Gayle jockey through the familiar note-pregnant progression to “Giant Steps.” Once again, it’s more atomizing the source material than according it stolid reverence. The detours are many, sometimes to point of being overly circuitous. The slowly evolving version of “What’s New” constitutes the concert’s peak. Gayle settles into full discursive ballad mode, his wounded lacerating tone softening and dispersing against the support of brushes and plush bass counterpoint. The against-type improvisation makes it ideal Blindfold Test addition. The piece also illustrates a reservation born out of nostalgia for the Charles Gayle of old. Marathon over-the-top conflagrations like More Live and Repent don’t appear to be his bag anymore and age has likely exacted something of a toll. Even the most explosive of his utterances here fail to match the nuclear force of the detonations on those vintage discs, but the consequent maturity and diversity make for a grudgingly fair trade.
~ Derek Taylor
Posted by derek on June 11, 2006 6:17 PM"Wimberly is still a bit of the basher he’s always been"
-I played a gig with him in NY with Fuchs a few years ago and he was a really sensitive player. I know he gets bashing with Gayle, though.
He also plays with good dynamics with the east coast version of
Oluyemi & Ijeoma Thomas' "Positive knowlege".
Amoeba Records, the best record store I have ever been in, has had a lot of the Ayler titles for $5.95, I just picked up "and William Danced" and the John Stevens trio " Live at the Plough" with a young but already awesome Paul Rogers.
Stick with the Stevens trio, Damon. This latest Gayle outing hasn't convinced me yet, four listens in. Shame he didn't play the house piano at the Glenn Miller Café instead. I liked his solo piano album on Tompkins Square very much. But here the Ayler cover ("Ghosts", well what a surprise) sounds pretty wooden, and I wish people would leave "Giant Steps" alone. "More atomizing the source material than according it stolid reverence" indeed - it's patently clear that Gayle can't handle the changes (no big deal: neither could Archie Shepp). And if you don't play the changes in "Giant Steps" there's no bloody point playing "Giant Steps", in my opinion. It's like Frank Lowe (RIP) who got hopelessly lost trying to cover "Gazzelloni" last time I saw him in concert. Why do these free jazz cats feel the need to measure themselves up against Dolphy and Coltrane? Did Pollock and Rothko ever feel the need to compete with Cezanne by trying their hand at a still life?
Posted by: Dan Warburton at June 11, 2006 9:56 PMThe Stevens trio works over Jackie McLean's "Blue Rondo" pretty well, but Mike Osbourne was such a fantastic and underrated player.
No reason to do "Giant Steps" agian. Wadada Leo Smith told me a story about gig where the leader called "Giant Steps".
Leo said; "I'll play you some steps but they might not be giant".
The Ayler cd I really want to get is the one with Palle Danileson. He such a beautiful bass player and rarely heard out of reach of Eicher's reverb knob.
Funnily enough last concert of Gayle's I saw he played "Giant Steps".... the tune. That was it--he didn't improvise on it, just played the head, once. -- Actually he barely played anything at all, this was deep into his "Streets the Clown" phase & most of the concert was mime.
Posted by: ND at June 11, 2006 11:18 PMI'm torn on about this disc.
While Gayle's originals are fine, they don't grab me his playing doesn't grab me the way it used to in the late 80's / early 90's when I used to see the man play a lot. Obviously, there's nothing that will come in replacing a live concert and in that aspect at least, the CD does come close. In terms of the covers, rehashing Ayler and Coltrane is pointless.
That’s funny, I found the interlude medley of Gayle’s “Chasing” and “Praising The Lord” to be the least convincing part of the disc, though the second piece’s sanctified band prayer is entertainingly off-cuff.
Again Tom, I don’t get your aversion to musicians covering staples from the canon. What’s so terrible about doing a Coltrane tune or interpreting an Ayler ditty? Granted, some of Gayle’s versions are more lip service than concerted attempts at translation, but they still end up vehicles for his more personalized blowing. How do you feel about Monk’s Ellington album on Riverside for instance? Or Jarrett’s Standards Trio? Are those ventures pointless? I guess an argument could now be made for the latter example a quarter century on since its inception, but I certainly wouldn't make it.
Oh well, at least we agree on the primacy of Gayle’s early 90s work.
Posted by: derek at June 12, 2006 9:34 PMDerek - my sole issue with this disc is the covers Gayle chose to do are all rather...what's the word - predictable. Had he covered Barry White or Al Green, I may have been impressed.
Once again, nothing wrong with people doing covers; it's just the choice of covers that irritates me at times.
damon smith,
If you send me your address, I will mail you a copy for free.
Musicians and “free jazz experts” who have heard this CD say: “It’s a treasure – fantastic”.
Wrong changes!??? Even worse, believe or not – they even play “time” here and there.
Jesus Christ! This is black, free jazz!!!!
All the best
Jan Ström
Ayler Records
ayler@ayler.com
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