JAZZ REVIEWS : Mercurial Improvisations From Charles Gayle

Often delivering high-note squeals that sounded like a zebra being savaged by lions, reedman Charles Gayle offered an alternately jubilant and frustrating platter of free jazz when he made his Los Angeles debut Monday night at the Alligator Lounge.

Gayle, a New Yorker who makes his living primarily playing on the streets of Manhattan, juxtaposed his mercurial tenor-sax improvisations between knife-blade-thin shrieks and low-to-mid-horn wallops. The musician--backed by bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Bob Meyer--made these leaps so swiftly at times it seemed there were two hornmen playing.

Ironically, though Gayle avoids many of the essentials of conventional music--chordal structure, a steady beat--the level of his performance rose when he played more conventionally. In the second of four pieces, Gayle employed space between notes, issued soft, mid-range tones and even opted for scraps of melody. These moments, rather than his customary wall-of-sound declamations, were the evening’s most musical.

Bisio and Meyer provided Gayle with less-than-ideal support: Both were seemingly in their own worlds, playing more for themselves.