Charles Gayle Quartet

Daily Bread is the Charles Gayle Quartet album for Black Saint, recorded at East Side Sound in New York on October 25, 26 and 28, 1995 and released in 1998. Gayle wrote all nine pieces, and their titles come from Christian devotion: This Cup, Our Sins, Offering To Christ, Shout Merrily. His quartet had already made Always Born in 1988, Translations for Silkheart in 1993 and the live Knitting Factory sets of February 1993. What sets this session apart is how much the four men change instruments.

Charles Gayle plays tenor saxophone and bass clarinet, and also piano and viola. William Parker is credited on cello and piano, Wilber Morris on bass, and Michael Wimberly on drums and violin. Between them the group covers reeds, piano, drums and four string instruments, from violin and viola down to cello and bass. Flavio Bonandrini produced, Jon Rosenberg engineered, and the master was made by Aldo Borrelli at PhonoComp in Tribiano near Milan. Steve Holtje wrote the liner notes and Gayle drew the cover. This Cup opens the disc at ten minutes, Earthly Things runs close to eleven, and Offering To Christ is the longest piece at almost sixteen. Shout Merrily closes a programme of over 75 minutes.

This is the Black Saint CD 120158-2, first released in 1998, in a jewel case with an eight-page booklet.