Arthur Doyle

Arthur Doyle (June 26, 1944 – January 25, 2014) was an American jazz saxophonist, flutist, zanzithophonist and vocalist.[1]

For other people named Arthur Doyle, see Arthur Doyle (disambiguation).
Arthur Doyle
Doyle in 2011
Background information
Born(1944-06-26)June 26, 1944
OriginBirmingham, Alabama, United States
DiedJanuary 25, 2014(2014-01-25) (aged 69)
GenresFree jazz, avant-garde jazz
Occupation(s)Musician, composer
InstrumentsTenor saxophone, flute, recorder, bass clarinet, piano, vocals
Associated actsNoah Howard, Milford Graves, Rudolph Grey, The Blue Humans

Biography

Arthur Doyle was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1944. He was inspired to play the saxophone as child, after watching Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington play music on television. He received a degree in Music Education from Tennessee State University. His first professional performance was with trumpeter Walter Miller, a Sun Ra alumnus. He often performed with Gladys Knight & the Pips, among others, in the R&B genre as well as in jazz. Although he performed primarily in Nashville early on in his career, he did go on tours that took him as far as Detroit. Doyle was not initially interested in free jazz, but after a performing for a Black Panthers festival he gradually gravitated toward free jazz, and sometimes appeared in concert with Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra.[2] Arthur Doyle's first recorded appearance was on Noah Howard's album The Black Ark. He would later appear on Milford Grave's album Babi Music, and Alan Silva's Desert Music, as well as performances with The Blue Humans. His first recording session as a leader was on Alabama Feeling, released in 1978. He appeared on a number of recordings in the 1990s and throughout the first decade of the 2000s as a leader, solo artist, or sideman. His last performance was recorded in 2013 and released on DVD.

Thurston Moore was a fan of Arthur Doyle, and spoke highly of Doyle's first album as a leader (Alabama Feeling) when he published his list of important free jazz albums.[3] Arthur Doyle's name appeared on a Sonic Youth song, "Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream" (originally titled "Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream") from their album Sonic Nurse. According to Thurston Moore, the song:

juxtaposes the two extremes of Sonic Youth's eclectic mix of influences. "We could, on the one hand, be interested in a popular figure as ubiquitous as Mariah and on the other hand, we're obviously interested in people [like free-jazz saxophonist Arthur Doyle] that are working on the fringes of the musical world. We operate much more on the fringes and with people from that world as our peers than we do in the world of the big-time music business. Our peers are mostly people from the underground."[4]

Discography
Date Album Notes Label
1978 Alabama Feeling debut as leader AK-BA
1993 More Alabama Feeling - Forced Exposure
1995 Plays and Sings from the Songbook, Volume 1 - Audible Hiss
1996 Live at the Cooler 1995 gig with Rudolph Grey on guitar. The Lotus Sound
1997 The Songwriter - Ecstatic Peace!
1997 Do the Breakdown - Ain-Soph
2000 A Prayer For Peace - Zugswang
2002 Live at the Dorsch Gallery - Carbon
2003 Egg Head 7" single Hell's Half Halo
2005 No More Crazy Women - Qbico
2005 No More Evil Women Tour - Carbon
2009 Ghosts II 7" single (with Rudolph Grey on guitar) Foreign Frequency
2001 Plays the African Love Call - Ecstatic YOD
2002 Conspiracy Nation - Qbico
2004 National Conspiracy Remix of pre-recorded and live material Carbon
2005 Patriotic Act - Qbico
2000 Dawn of a New Vibration Sunny Murray Fractal
2001 Live at the Glenn Miller Cafe Sunny Murray Ayler
2003 Live in Japan, 1997 Takashi Mizutani/Sabu Toyozumi Qbico
2003 The Basement Tapes Edward Perraud/Dan Warburton Durto
2004 Your Spirit is Calling Hamid Drake Qbico
Year Artist Album Label
1969 Noah Howard The Black Ark Freedom Records
1976 Milford Graves Babi Music IPS
1982 Celestial Communication Orchestra Desert Mirage IAPC
1988 Rudolph Grey Transfixed New Alliance
1989 Sun Ra Someday My Prince Will Come - Second Star To The Right: Salute to Walt Disney Leo
1995 The Blue Humans Live NY 1980 Audible Hiss
2002 Konx Wholy Ghost Eyedrum

2013 A doc of Arthur Doyle's final tour is made entitled THE LIFE LOVE AND HATE OF A FREE JAZZ MAN AND HIS WOMAN directed by Jorge Torres-Torres.

References
  1. "Arthur Doyle 1944-2014". Burning Ambulance. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  2. Artist Profiles: Arthur Doyle
  4. Sonic Youth's Ongoing Experiment, by Jennifer Kelly, July 12, 2004
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.