Charles Gayle, the fierce saxophonist who created his own path, has died at 84
In his horn, subway cars rumbled, buses hissed, traffic screeched and sirens howled. Homeless for more than a decade, Gayle was forever in conversation with the streets of New York.
Charles Gayle, the New York saxophonist who embodied a radical yet humble expression of freedom in his music, died Tuesday. He was 84.
His death was confirmed by dancer and Arts for Art founder Patricia Nicholson Parker. She had received word through Gayle's son, Ekwambu Gayle. "His immense genius was a gift to a suffering world," reads a with her. "Yet a healing music flowed like a river through him. Charles Gayle was a master musician for all time."
