Charles Gayle, 1939-2023

Biblical monotheism was born when Abraham followed God’s call to leave his home and go toward an as-yet-unknown destination. American Transcendentalism emerged when Henry David Thoreau decided to leave his home in Concord, Massachusetts, to go live in the woods. It remains to be seen if a new musical movement was born when the saxophonist Charles Gayle left his home to live and play music on the streets of New York City. But he joined a long and venerable line of religious and artistic pioneers whose abandonments of their homes for voluntary temporary homelessness aided their creativity and expanded their reach.