Charles Gayle, the fierce saxophonist who created his own path, has died at 84

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/08/ [login to see] /charles-gayle-saxophonist-obit
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 joint statement with her husband, bassist William Parker. "Yet a healing music flowed like a river through him. Charles Gayle was a master musician for all time."

Gayle's sound on the tenor sax could be fierce and unruly. In his horn, subway cars rumbled, buses hissed, traffic screeched and sirens howled. For Gayle, he wasn't just playing or performing the streets; his music was a shaking reaction to and conversation with New York noise.