Charles Gayle – Unto I Am
March 3rd, 2025
Offering up five tracks of solo instrumental intensity from this NYC street musician and torch-passed-to rep of ’60s free jazz motions, Charles Gayle, Unto I Am is a pressure cooker that is definitely worthy of a place in your kitchen. “Innocent” (for tenor sax), “Pastures Colors” (for bass clarinet), and “Child’s Love” (for tenor sax) possess the kind of skruff, throat-toot-wail-gargle glory that guys like Albert Ayler and Kaoru Abe did more than hint at with their ground shoveling work of yore —and fans of those two characters should have a little bit more than a passing crush on these definitely-not-dainty passages. “Eden Lost” is an energetic, dissonant piano romp with a super pissed Sunday morning sermon weaved throughout. “You said, ‘I want to find my own way. I want to do what I want to do—no matter what.’ Because you say, ‘I’m good—Oh, I’m just a little bad.’ Christ said, ‘There’s no way. There’s none righteous. I’m The Way, The Truth and The Light. Ain’t nobody comes to the father but by me.’” The disc closes with an 11-minute overdub mix called, “Good Shepard” for sermon, percussion and tenor sax.
Label: Victo Catalog Number: VICTO CD 032 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 5 Country: Canada Released: 1995 More: Downbeat, Wikipedia
Text ©2003 Arcane Candy
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