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    Charles Gayle + William Parker + Rashied Ali – Touchin’ on Trane

    Charles Gayle + William Parker + Rashied Ali - Touchin' on Trane

    The first time I heard Charles Gayle, I actually saw him, too, at a live show he headlined in San Diego back in 1996. Word was floating around amongst the spaghetti, I mean cognoscenti that Mr. Gayle was enjoying the fruits of a proper national tour brandishing the torch of 1960s free jazz, after suffering through years of homelessness. All human heads in the small but packed house that night got completely incinerated by an infinite amount of molten noodles emanating from Charles’ gale force breath blown through a smoldering sax, as he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ briefly in between tracks. Aside from the latter, the program on this excellent CD is quite similar, cleanly recorded five years earlier in late 1991. Occasionally, the maelstrom subsides to let William or Rashied take a mellow, soulful solo.

    The CD booklet contains an unbelievably sour grapes rant that rails against the American white classical music establishment for ignoring black jazz musicians; rarely offering them any funding, concerts, exposure, etc. Although the author claims this is due to racism, to me it seems more like a case of simple music conservatism. Plenty of noisy, free-form music made by white people never sees the light of day outside of tiny clubs, either. Plus, free jazz and other improvised music doesn’t usually contain loads of traditional melody, harmony and rhythm, which instantly alienates most people of any color, who’ll unfortunately never be able to open their minds up wide enough to accept it. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the audience at Gayle’s aforementioned 1996 show was composed mostly of white people. I wish humans could have skin like the octopus that changes its color and texture to match rocks, plants or the ocean floor. Then we could all get along anytime, anywhere. “Okay, you want to play a show at the Lincoln Center? You can’t be black, white or yellow. You have to be green with black zebra stripes!” No problem, bro. Consider it done!

    Label: Jazzwerkstatt Catalog Number: JW 024 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 5 Total Time: 66:37 Country: United States Released: 2007 More: Amazon, Last.FM, Wikipedia, YouTube

    Text ©2011 Arcane Candy

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