Charles Gayle Quartet - Blue Shadows (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

When Keith Knox and I founded Silkheart Records in 1984, our main objective was to present the “new American jazz”, but also to record the lesser-known, under-recorded heroes of the seventies loft scene époque.

We got off to a brisk start with the latter category by recording Charles Brackeen, Booker T., Ahmed Abdullah, The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Charles Tyler et al.

About 1985 I had heard a tenorist playing in two separate locations in Manhattan, at the Times Square subway station and around Grand Central. His playing was challenging to say the least, but I didn’t pay too much attention at that time, unlike bassist Hilliard Greene whose attention was grabbed immediately (see his interview in Cadence, August 2006).

A year or so later a friend sent Keith a tape of a tenor player, which he passed over to me. The sound quality was terrible and I didn’t think much of the music. I was told that the tenorist’s name was Charles Gayle and that he was homeless. I did not immediately drop the project and for some reason I was curious, so that when I visited NYC at some time in 1986 and learned that Charles was to play in a small apartment in Soho, I went there to hear him and realized...  more

1. Inside the Sun 03:00

2. Blue Shadows 11:30

3. Eternity Promised 1 17:13

4. Eternity Promised 2 02:08

5. Hearts to Jesus 17:49

6. Soul’s Time 03:09

7. In Sorrow 13:38

8. Snap 01:51

Charles Gayle tenor saxophone, viola

William Parker bass, cello, half-size violin

Vattel Cherry bass, kalimba, bells

Michael Wimberly drums

Charles Gayle Quartet - Raining Fire (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"The all-out assaults of his earlier sessions gives way here to a more open rhythmic sensibility. Gayle's playing takes on an emotionally incantatory urgency here over the shifting layers of dual basses and Wimberly's tumbling, flexible attack. Raining Fire is the more fiery of the two CDs, from the opening blasting hurricane charge through In Christ with Gayle's most incendiary playing of the two. Translations (Silkheart 134) and Raining Fire are welcome additions to Gayle's growing discography, documenting Gayle's uncompromising intensity and continued growth." 

Michael Rosenstein, Cadence, November 1994

Standing on a Chinatown streetcorner, waiting for his ride to a New Jersey studio for day two of recording Raining Fire and Translations (Silkheart 134), Charles Gayle found himself flanked by two guys who wanted him to do something - wanted him to document his playing on chord changes. Gayle's Rollins-like hurtling hurdles usually heard during second sets, live are startling, all the more to folks who keep insisting outcats can't really play.

So these two unlikely allies, with very different relationships with Gayle, were trying to get a stubborn independent to see things their way. One of them had gently pressed Charles...  more

1. In Christ 17:09

2. Blood's Finality 12:52

3. Death Conquered 15:34

4. Grace 14:50

5. Raining Fire 08:20

Charles Gayle tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, viola

William Parker bass, cello, half-size violin

Vattel Cherry bass, kalimba, bells

Michael Wimberly drums

Charles Gayle Quartet - Translations (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"At a time when too many musicians rely on arch referential irony or a reverence to catholic, stylistic recreations, it is bracing to hear a musician who unabashedly ignores fads and styles to aggressively pursue a music imbued with such powerful, emotional depth." 

Michael Rosenstein, Cadence, November 1994

This January Thursday breaks bright, boding well. At 10:15 that morning, a motorcade of taxicabs, its drivers protesting hazardous working conditions, moves slowly down Broadway toward City Hall, car horns in a distinctive staccato rhythm - a rhythm often favored by Charles Gayle, standing on the corner of Canal Street as they drive past. 

This cold, windy Manhattan day feels oddly warm. Maybe it's the pale winter sun, or knowing that 12 years of Reagan and Bush have ended. It is the first full day of the Clinton administration.

At the inauguration in Washington the previous noon, at a podium a few feet from the new president, the distinguished African-American writer Maya Angelou had read an impressive entry in that difficult genre, public poetry rifting on the triple trophes laid out in the opening lines: "A Rock, A River, A Tree" 

The horizon leans...  more

1. Joyous Fellowship 14:40

2. Healing 19:01

3. Holy Mountain 14:38

4. Hymn of Praise 08:53

5. Suffering for Love 14:00

Charles Gayle tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, viola

William Parker bass, cello, half-size violin

Vattel Cherry bass, kalimba, bells

Michael Wimberly drums

Various Artists - Spirit of New Jazz (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"We'd like to thank you at Silkheart for making the best compilation album of any kind that we've ever heard." 

Rick Petrie, WITR/FM 89.7 Rochester Institute of Technology, N.Y., April 1993

Through the long and rich history of jazz there have been a handful of labels that have defined their own jazz era. In the 1920s it was pioneering labels like Paramount and Vocalion, in the 1930s it was Decca and Bluebird. In the post-War era, with the creative burst of Bop and Progressive jazz, it was labels like Dial and Roost and Prestige and Blue Note that gave the musicians their first place to be heard. Now, in a new jazz era, it's a new label, Silkheart, that's giving us the sound of today's break-through musicians who are defining jazz in their time.

On Silkheart you'll hear artists like Charles Gayle, William Hooker, David Ware, Matt Shipp, Ahmed Abdullah, Charles Brackeen, Rob Brown, Charles Tyler, and Steve Lacy, and this is the only kind of music you'll hear on Silkheart. This is a label that's dedicated to the new music and its creators.

Silkheart is the result of a collaboration between two enthusiasts who have spent years hearing and evaluating what is happening in today's jazz. The studio production is in the hands of Keith Knox, who is well known as a jazz writer and critic and as producer of some of the most adventurous music to be found anywhere. He produced artists like Okay Temiz for the World Jazz catalog of Sonet Records, and he brought Charles Tyler to Storyville Records for two breakthrough albums.

The final decisions on what to record are made with his partner, Swedish jazz lover Lars-Olof Gustavsson, who spent many years in New York soaking up jazz in the era of loft music and free jazz. Lars seems to spend as much time in New York as he does in Sweden, and he is just as involved in the NewYork jazz club scene today. It is this personal involvement in the new jazz that makes Silkheart unique, and gives the music on Silkheart its immediacy in today's jazz world.

Sam Charters

1. Ahmed Abdullah Quartet - Reflections on a Mystic 5:12

2. Michael Bisio Quartet - A.M. 5.28

3. Charles Brackeen Quartet - House of Gold 9:04

4. Booker T. Trio - What a Friend We Have in Jesus 5:38

5. David S. Ware Trio - An Ancient Formula 5:45

6. Dennis Charles Triangle - Afro-Amer. Ind 7:15

7. Charles Gayle Trio - Eternal Now 7:32

8. Ethnic Heritage Ensemble - Ancestral Song 5:43

9. Joel Futterman Quartet - Reality on Edge 7:51

10. Rob Brown Trio - Escape Velocity 6:36

11. Dennis Gonzalez Quartet - Boi Fuba 3:03

12. Other Dimensions in Music - Spirits Rise/Fall 6:13

Charles Gayle Trio - Spirits Before (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

One of the right night, Gayle live is one of jazz's sublime experiences; Spirits Before will clue you why." 

Kevin Whitehead, Down Beat, December 1991

A very private man, tenor saxophonist Charles Gayle's early career in music is shrouded in mystery. Raised in Buffalo, New York, Gayle was part of New York's free jazz movement in the late 1960's, but he has chosen to remain out of the spotlight, shunning the business of music. 

Charles Gayle has appeared on the New York Club and loft scene maybe half a dozen times in the past fifteen years and somehow or other we've managed to hear him in all kinds of different settings, always forthrightly projecting his personal approach to playing. He has always been a gut player, with ideas and no fear.

To all intents and purposes, Charles was living up the streets of New York in 1987 when we approached him with the idea of letting more people hear his music. The result was that be organized a trio with Hill Green on bass and David Pleasant on drums, which made its debut at the 4th Lower East Side Music Festival. From then on the Charles Gayle Trio began to generate a great deal of excitement and interest on the New York music scene. 

His music has a strength, a purity and a beauty that is completely spontaneous and devoid of pretence. We discussed his approach to the music with Charles and his reply was, "The music I am playing at this point is totally spontaneous, nothing set – just go for the Spirit, the Holy Ghost. I feel I am pushing for the Black Sanctified Spirit beyond the ego consciousness. I always feel uplifted and filled with the Holy Black Spirit – propelled (or drawn) to the unconscious." 

This album represents an overture to the music and musicians who have preceeded him – Charles feels he owes them. For our part, we find that blues, gospel, avant-garde, the music of changes, etcetera – somehow all-inclusive in these works. 

We've had the opportunity of hearing Charles a good deal during the past year and have begun to understand that his music is forever changing, with a constant stream of fresh ideas and new searchings. Very particular directions have been set up and pursued from one gig to the next and, as avid listeners, we can only hope that Charles Gayle's wider audience will have a chance to hear this outpouring of musical directions as they unfold. 

We feel compelled to include portions of an article in the New York Times for Thursday, September 3rd, 1987, written by music critic Jon Pareles: 

"The challenge of free jazz is to create coherent, compelling music without such obvious devices as melody, recurring chord sequences or a steady beat. It's a challenge that has defeated many a virtuoso since the free-jazz heyday of the 1960's. But Charles Gayle, a tenor saxopbonist, is carving out a free jazz that is muscular, impassioned, clearly structured and wonderfully volatile. 

Mr. Gayle plays contours and textures rather than melodies, using a different range and technique for each composition. He gets a huge saxophone tone, whether he's playing wide-open low notes or shrieking overtones, and he holds the stage with calm dignity while generating a fusillade of music. 

Mr. Gayle's trio makes music to move mountains by. We realize, of course, that words are an implication of reality. For the past forty years we've witnessed the music and musicians at first hand from generation to generation, the greats and the near-greats. On an average of four or five nights a week in all those years we've seen them all. We express this to give credence to our words when we say that Charles Gayle will definitely get your attention if you dare to listen to him. 

Irving and Stephanie Stone
N.YC. 1988

1. Eternal Now 07:34

2. Spirits Before 17:49

3. Heart's Nectar 09:53

4. Earth's Families 07:57

5. Give 06:49

6. Black Oil 08:04

7. Sometimes 09:03

Charles Gayle tenor saxophone

Sirone bass

Dave Pleasant drums

Charles Gayle Trio - Homeless (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"Gayle's been around for decades, since this style was new, but he's never gotten much acclaim. Partly that's because he doesn't much care whether he gets recorded or not; partly it's because this is strong stuff; and partly because the rude style of music he plays better than almost anyone else around now is pretty far from the buttoned-down jazz that makes the cover of Time." 

Kevin Whitehead, City Paper, November 24, 1990

It was a stormy night the first time I went to hear Charles Gayle. He was doing a couple of Mondays at a then up and corning club called the "Knitting Factory", not too far from where I live. 

He was first brought to my attention by someone who knew my face around the local jazz clubs. I was handed a flyer and told, "Go see him. I don't think you'll be sorry". 

After catching his name again and again from other jazz regulars – fanatics like myself who took every possible opportunity to see anyone, old or new, who was felt to have any merit – I decided to lend it an ear. By now I had accumulated enough gossip to know that Gayle, recently returned from Europe, was living in a storefront in Brooklyn, hitting fifty and was as strong as, if not stronger than any player alive or dead. Also he remained virtually unknown as well as unrecorded. So, filled with intrigue I walked briskly to the club hoping to be overwhelmed, but expecting to be more than likely disappointed, as I had been on 50 many other occasions of this nature. I asked my wife, who usually accompanies me, "Mr Obsessive", to come along. But due to the weather and the unknown factor she refused, so I went alone and sat alone in the half empty club

While waiting for the music to begin, I ordered a raspberry soda and struck up a conversation with a jazz collagist by the name of John D'Agostino who told me that he had seen Gayle before and that he was right out of the Sixties. He's the best in outside playing and the only one to do it air the way." Or, as Gayle himself would subsequently put it, "Knock down the walls. Blow my GUTS out!"

About twenty minutes later he walked onto the stage, tall, lean, quiet and unpretentious looking... basic... yes, very basic. He stood at the left corner of the stage, fidgeted a bit, nervously distant, attached his horn nodded to the other members of the trio, raised his horn to his lips, bent down low at the knees and as he rocked up and down the wind started howling. 

He played non-stop for about one full hour and with such intensity that I fell into a great smiling stupor of improvisational ecstasy; of which one result was the following poem written sometime during the first set:

The Sleeping Tree 

You 

& the wind 

thru the young tree blowing 

bending 

screaming 

& wondering 

& the wind outside 

we cannot feel & the ghosts we 

can 

not 

feel 

the wind outside 

that shakes the tree young tree

the soul inside 

a willing tree 

that seems to go where you 

push it.

A few months earlier I had met Keith Knox at "Sweet Basil", a jazz club in lower Manhattan, and, like a lot of jazz buffs we struck up a conversation at the bar. Keith was in town to do some recording for a new label called Silkheart Records. We exchanged addresses and phone numbers and soon after became penpals. In letters and phone calls Keith would, from time to time, ask me to help him locate particular people he wished to record, as well as informing him of anyone I thought deserving, who was either under-recorded or not recorded stall. Gayle was perfect. 

I returned to the "Knitting Factory" in due course complete with a tape machine and my wife (who now believed in my belief), and asked Charles Gayle if I could record him. To which he replied, "I can't stop them from whipping out their microphones in Europe, why stop you?" I said, "Thanks", and taped two fantastic sets, after which I went up to him and mentioned how I really loved the last tune. He looked quizzically over to Stephanie Stone and muttered, "What was the last tune?" 

That same week I sent the tape off to Keith complete with my feelings about Gayle as a musician, and his powerful, raw, seemingly unfathomable energy. I was new at this and very excited! 

Several correspondences pro and con, passed before Keith informed me that it was tentatively agreed to record Gayle for Silkheart. By this time he was living in an abandoned building on the Lower Eastside, playing on the street and doing an occasional gig in a bar or gallery. When I told him at one such gig of the possibility of his being recorded. He replied nonchalantly, "Well, if it happens that's fine. If it doesn't, that's fine too." 

Almost a year went by before dates were finally set up and one of three results is the disc you are now holding in your hands. And, when spinning it you will hear some of the freest and most awesome blowing that has ever been produced. 

One of Gayle's great loves is boxing and he says he want to play the way a good boxer fights. With the key element being DRIVE. His ideal group, or "sparring partners", would be himself and two drummers, so that when one gets tired and drops out, the other steps into the ring. 

Charles Gayle is an action player. For me he is to the saxophone what Jackson Pollack is to painting. The colors caress you as they burst all over the canvas in a carefully controlled frenzy. He is completely involved, yet at the same time totally uninvolved. His compositions cover the entire spectrum of feeling and thought. Charles Gayle is unique! Listen closely, and invite comparisons if you dare.

As for the other musicians on this date: Sirone is a co-founder of The Group, a fine working quintet, and the quartet, Phalanx, with "Blood" Ulmer, George Adams and Rashied Ali. He is a seasoned veteran whose playing on this date is total joy and whose overall work seems to get more beautiful with each stroke. He can do it all under any circumstances.

Drummer Dave Pleasant was born in Savannah, Georgia on January 1st, 1961, and raised on Supelo Island (one of the Georgia Sea Islands). Dave has a B.A. in psychology and was working on his Master's Degree at Columbia when he dropped out to concentrate on music full time.

This is his first major recording and the first time he has been able to make use of a full set of drums to compliment Charles' music, and the results are phenomenal! Live, Dave usually uses two snares, a hi-hat, assorted soundmakers, and his feet. He is a working member of the Charles Gayle Trio along with Hilliard "Hill" Green of Iowa, a fine young bass player. 

I had the privilege of being at this session and can only say that these three outstanding musicians came the closest I've ever heard to sounding like one impassioned voice. When it was over I walked all the way downtown, towards HOME, feeling totally full.

So put on this disc, button up your coat, and get ready for a GAYLE FORCE... and watch those walls come tumblin' down.

Steve Dalachinsky
N.YC. 1988

1. Then Creations 19:31

2. Prayers and Fears 04:56

3. Homeless 11:28

4. Lift Every Voice 12:13

5. Your Design 08:59

6. Warm Bones Cold 09:22

Charles Gayle tenor saxophone

Sirone bass

Dave Pleasant drums

Charles Gayle Quartet - Always Born (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"Charles Gayle is carving out a free jazz that is muscular, impassioned, clearly structured, and wonderfully volatile." 

Jon Pareles, New York Times

I met Steve Dalachinsky at the bar one night when we were both listening to the Steve Lacy Sextet at "Sweet Basil" in lower Manhattan and we agreed to write to each other once in a while. So one day Steve wrote a card to me with a couple of suggestions for artists likely to be of interest to Silkheart, and one of them was Charles Gayle. He said that if we'd cover his tape costs he'd send a tape, and in due course it turned up in the mail.

The music was pretty interesting, but I wasn't sure just how special it was and turned the tape over to my associate, Lars Olof Gustavsson, for his reactions. Some little while later Lars and I got together and talked about Steve's tape and about Charles Gayle. He was quite lukewarm about the whole thing, which is a fair indication of just how hard it can be to assess new music and new musicians when presented via low fidelity live recordings. I sounded out Lars again and he was rather concerned because, in principle, the project was just the kind of thing Silkheart should be working with and he wished he liked the tape more.

We left it on that note, but some weeks afterwards Lars was in New York on business and had the opportunity of hearing the Charles Gayle Trio at the "Knitting Factory" in East Houston Street. He came back to Stockholm shortly before Christmas full of enthusiasm for Gayle's music, having clearly heard things during the personal appearance that he hadn't ear on Steve's tape. It was agreed that Silkheart arrange to record Gayle with a trio, and it was also decided to record him as part of a quartet with John Tchicai alongside.

For some time, Silkheart had had the intention of recording John Tchicai in New York and Lars wanted to find a situation in which Tchicai could be featured with New York musicians who would push him into producing music of a different nature from that of his recent Danish and European efforts. The two of them had discussed the idea in a general sort of way and I was given the job of putting a session together. 

Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon met John Tchicai in Helsinki in 1960 and suggested that he move to New York. Tchicai was active on the New York scene for a large part of the sixties, with a celebrated background of performances and recordings together with the New York Contemporary Five, the New York Art Quartet, John Coltrane ("Ascension"), and Carla Bley.

He played at the Cellar Cafe during Bill Dixon's 'October Revolution' of 1967 and became a charter member of the Jazz Composers' Guild, a brave venture having much importance in retrospect. At the present time, he has not recorded in a new jazz Situation in the U.S.A. for more than twenty years, and the sad fact is that Tchicai has tended more and more to cease being the jazz visionary he once was and has become almost journeyman in his approach.

Sirone was chosen as the bassist for the Charles Gayle Trio and seemed also an appropriate choice for the quartet. Sirone has an impressive history in new jazz, beginning with his involvement in the activities of Bernard Stollman's ESP label during the sixties. Since then he has played with many of the artists active on the new jazz scene in the U.S., leading groups of his own on occasion, and co-leading the Revolutionary Ensemble for a number of years. Currently he is co-founder of The Group. Sirone is an astonishingly creative improviser with a style that is very much his own. To describe him as an individualist is an understatement and he is a good man to have on a session.

It was proposed from the outset that the quartet and trio sessions would have different drummers. It was decided that the Chicagoan, Reggie Nicholson, now based in New York, would perform with the quartet while Gayle's regular drummer, Dave Pleasant, would record with the trio. Reggie Nicholson is a young drummer with a bright future, who has already played with a good many artists including the Henry Threadgill Sextet, Amina Claudine Myers, and Wilber Morris' Wilberforce.

He was more than happy to have the opportunity of taking part in the recording session and played superbly; being more than a little responsible for the overall success of the proceedings.

The question of rehearsals was brought up, but Charles Gayle was quite adamant; there were to be none. Charles and John did speak on the telephone when Charles was in Germany a few weeks before the session, but they didn't talk about the same things. Charles was into energy and intensity and John spoke of colors, shades and textures. 

Gayle doesn't plan what he's going to play until he plays it, although it would as likely as not be high energy; It was in this spirit that he aimed to go into the studio and simply play his music. In retrospect, while this strategy can be seen to have worked perfectly well as far as the trio recordings were concerned, there were a few matters that required attention before the quartet began to produce real music.

To iron out the differences in musical philosophy between the two saxists, a public gig for the quartet was arranged to take place at "The Knitting Factory" before the recording. Charles was more than willing to appear with the quartet and, since the music was not notated, the session would have been particularly valuable. Although arrangements were made well ahead, the club got into a tangle with its dates and was unable to offer the quartet space until after the recording session had been completed.

Charles Gayle is extremely forceful when he needs to be and there were occasions during the early part of the quartet recording session when this was necessary. First of all, there was the matter of historical perspective which he had to clear up. Gayle explained that he could play many kinds of music and in specific circumstances he played what was appropriate. For a recording of his own music, he intended to play material of a kind that had not been played before. Otherwise why bother? Power was what his music had to offer and it would be of a different order from music that had gone before. A few quotations will best give the idea of what Gayle was trying to get across to the other members of the quartet. 

"All of my music is completely spontaneous 

I plan nothing and say nothing to the musicians." 

"If the building is still standing when we're through, we've failed." 

"What I play has to do with power, my father was a steelworker." 

"When I play I want to go through the wall."

As far as the quartet was concerned there was an additional vector to account for and John Tchicai put his finger on it when he said, "We only started to pull into shape when Gayle understood that the music had to be played as a cooperative endeavor by all four of us." What actually happened in the studio on those two days was fascinating in the extreme. At the outset there were several violent expressions of intent from Gayle and a fair number of musical upsets. Tchicai was simply magnificent, playing with the benefit of long experience as he worked on making the quartet into a group.

This realization appeared to come simultaneously from all four musicians partway through that first day; All of a sudden there was music coming out from the studio and, as time went by, it simply got better. In the end, the results were eminently satisfactory and a great deal of highly varied, fascinating, and exciting music was produced. Especially noteworthy perhaps is the extraordinary bass and drums duo, "Coming Together", between Sirone and Nicholson.

Gayle is heard elsewhere in the right channel, with Tchicai in the left channel where he can be easily recognized by his more staccato approach and his fruitier tenor sound. Gayle has a huge saxophone tone and a blistering attack, which is based on wide intervals and astonishing melodic turns. Two more contrasting musicians would be hard to find and they complement each other very well in a certain way. 

Gayle utilizes a variety of approaches to each piece he plays, with, as he puts it, "A different range and a different technique." When he speaks of variety, he is referring to the contours and textures inherent in a particular composition, not so much the melodies, and this aspect of his playing is exceedingly well organized. As a result, the form presented in a group performance is invariably very clear indeed and there is little doubt that, in this sense, Charles Gayle has taken a significant step forward in his presentation of free jazz.

Towards the end of the second day, John Tchicai and I were in the control room listening to playbacks and John leaned over and said with a laugh, "Dear me, what is this you and Lars have got me into!" I replied that I thought it hadn't been so bad and he agreed, very warmly, that he'd thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Finally he said, "I hope you can arrange to have a line on the cover saying 'featuring me'." I agreed. 

Keith Knox

1. Always Born 09:48

2. Needs 11:52

3. Sold Clouds 12:58

4. Coming Together 05:22

5. Rainbow's Praise 06:17

6. Then Offer All 10:31

Charles Gayle tenor saxophone

John Tchicai soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone

Sirone bass

Reggie Nicholson drums

Charles Gayle / Giovani Barcella / Manolo Cabras - Live in Belgium (EL NEGOCITO RECORDS 2017)

Charles Gayle remains a living embody and voice of the great African American tradition; his sincerity and intensity are recognized as unique and absolutely dazzling, live and on a recording. Each concert Gayle is the continuation of the great tradition that can still be called "free." However not in the sense of the "free jazz" some people still speak of. Gayles mastery of that tradition is confirmed on his solo and pianowork. 

After being invited to Belgium by el NEGOCITO Records for the Citadelic Festival in 2012, the Italian drummer Giovanni Barcella (Marshall Allen, Arthur Doyle, Bobby Few, J.J. Avenel) organized three tours through Italy and Belgium, with the Italian double bass player Manolo Cabras. The meeting of minds was immediate, the musical coesion and respect for each another reason to keep on playing and releasing this live album. 

"They'd stop to hear a song, but I'm not playing songs. What I hear is the traffic. Everybody in New York hears it, but it's really vivid in my head. Horns and children and birds, too – I hear them so clearly, they hit me so hard. The subway roar, the jackhammers. Not that they're so loud but they stay there. The trucks and the sirens and the screeching and the hollering and the brakes, all that jagged movement, the Arggghhhh!" Jean Claude Charles Gayle (US) about him playing on the streets of NY.

1. Chiaro sguardo

C. Gayle / G. Barcella / M. Cabras - 06:40

2. Tears

C. Gayle - 02:52

3. Di piccola taglia

C. Gayle / G. Barcella / M. Cabras - 09:36

4. Sempre

M. Cabras - 04:18

5. Dimmi

C. Gayle / G. Barcella / M. Cabras - 05:50

6. Steps

C. Gayle - 07:22

7. Tears (la parola chiara)

C. Gayle / G. Barcella / M. Cabras - 04:46

Charles Gayle - tenor saxophone & piano

Giovani Barcella - selected drums and cymbals

Manolo Cabras - double bass

Recording, Mixing & Mastering Engineer: Manolo Cabras

Artwork & Photography: Dries Verstraete

Production: Rogé Verstraete & Giovanni Barcella