Never Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Story (March 2015)
A Bit About Arthur Doyle
by Ed Wilcox
I've moved about 40 times in my 50 years. So I'm always sifting through boxes, digging up memories. A couple weeks ago I find a big pile of cards - postcards, birthdays, valentines ... I flip through them quick and one sticks out. Heartshaped, big, ivory colored, lacy, real grandmother stuff. I opened it. "Thinking of you - Arthur Roi Doyle".
Wow, Arthur Doyle ! Purest, rawest tenor sound in Free Jazz ( and you know darn well that's the most important thing to have in Free Jazz ). Albert Ayler maybe tried to scream his way into some dizzy dimension, Peter Brotzman - I don't know - tries to sound like he's killing pigs or something, but Arthur ? The real blues, purest black snake moan since Blind Lemon Jefferson. And the greatest scat singer since Armstrong.
From Birmingham, Alabama, from a good family, Arthur started playing saxophone when he was about 9. He loved it - it was so shiny. Birmingham is a wonderful city now, maybe it was back then, but Arthur was happy to get out in the early '60s, trading church bombings and Bull Connors for time on the road with Donny Hathaway and Gladys Knight. All the time woodshedding bebop licks until he heard John Coltrane "Freedom !" and moved to New York City.
He scuffled by, working a bit as a "helper" at Blue Note records. If somebody was feeling a little down at a session Arthur would get whatever they needed to get back moving. He played a little with Sun Ra and Noah Howard. A couple years back I was playing in Denmark with the wonderful Daniel Carter ( a scholar and a gentleman ) and a peer of Arthur's from those early 70s New York glory years. He recalled "We'd all be jamming in those cafes and lofts, wearing our dashikis, and Arthur would come in wearing a fuschia suit - full Teddy Pendergrass. He'd cut you and he'd leave with your girl."
His big break came as a member of the Milford Graves Trio, teaming up with Hugh Glover to accompany the extreme drummer who used yoga, accupuncture, Kirlian auras, biofeedback and Kung Fu to take his music to a higher plane. With Sunny Murray, Rashied Ali and Keith Moon, Milford was a pioneer of free drumming, breaking rhythmic structure and replacing it with a ferocious flow of sound (and yodelling). Arthur, I think, took it with a grain of salt. Even in the Free Jazz world, his way took him on a little different route. He did a little yoga (Bushman Yoga) - kind of his own invention, stretching his long body a little and mainly working on his breathing - which involved smoking 4 packs a day and snorting some crazy menthol voodoo goo that he used to make.
That man could smoke. Smoke and smoke ! One time we was playing in Rochester. We were getting ready to go on. I looked around. Where's Arthur ? He's up on stage. The opening band, real serious free improv artists are thoughtfully plinking and plunking away, and there's Arthur - going up to each one of them in the middle of playing and asking them if they had any smokes. One time, we were in Birmingham. Our friend, Bryan Martin, took us to the cemetery where Sun Ra was buried. So we're there by the smallest little headstone in the graveyard (dwarfed by the mausoleum for Bear Bryant ) looking at the grass growing over Sonny Blount, and Jay Reeve, playing in the band, was getting a little misty eyed. "I feel like we should have brought him some flowers" and Arthur says "He can't smell'em. You got a smoke ?"
Years back we were playing in Nashville, and staying with our wonderful friends Chris and Emily. We're having a little brunch, enjoying their pleasant company, and Vinnie Paternostro, (playing synthesiser with us) mentioned that he had heard that Milford was in a project in which people with bum hearts get hooked up to a big video monitor, and you can see their heart, and Milford would play drums and it cools out their bad heartbeat. Interesting ! So, we're all grooving on that vibration for a while - and I could see Arthur, the only one of us who really knew Milford, was trying to think of something to add. Then his eyes gleamed - "That crazy nigger carries a .44 !" at which point Vinnie and I walked quietly, slowly, out of the kitchen, out of the house, and collapsed on the lawn, paralyzed with laughter.
How did I get to know him ? I guess around 1997, '98 Temple of Bon Matin was touring a lot, often as a duo with a guitarist named Linda Searnock. Just the most totally hip Phil Manzanera type player. We were lucky enough to befriend Dave Cross and his band, Coffee, from Rochester, New York.. Now, somehow, they had befriended Arthur, who had had a rough spell being imprisoned in France for five years for sexual assault before being pardoned by the French government. Now he's living with some relatives in Binghamton, New York, which is a nice town, but it's cold and it's in the middle of nowhere, and he's teaching little kids music - conducting "The Little Mermaid" and stuff. We started finding ourselves on shows together and we'd talk a bit - I think mainly 'cause he thought Linda was pretty, but he did once tell me I played like Milford Graves and Sunny Murray at the same time and slapped me five.
Mainly we talked about the South. I was born in Florida, grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast before misfortune stranded me in Philadelphia. I miss it so much. Arthur was fixing to move back to Birmingham. The first time we played together I dragged out a zydeco washboard run through a ring modulator and announced "Let's play some country music tonight !". He smiled and smiled and I was so inspired to meet a great artist who felt like I did - who found inspiration a thousand miles from New York. That certainly informed the last album we did "Bushman Yoga". I managed to find some musicians playing banjos and koras and whistles and dispensed with a lot of the electric fog which clouded most of the bands he'd had for years. I remember once we had four guys on stage with loops and laptops and we were just shaking our heads. You can practically hear chickens scratching in the background on "Bushman Yoga". We sat in his Mom's living room in Birmingham, I played it for him. He sat back and closed his eyes and smiled. He whispered "This is the best record I ever made. Sounds like gospel. Sounds like home."
His other favorite topic was astrology. He constantly forgot my birthday. I'd tell him again - October 28th - Scorpio. He'd smile and say that's why we got along. One tour I brought along a little pamphlet "Practical Time Travel". I never had much luck with it, but to this day I keep it by my bed. The band was ribbing me about it, but Arthur looked over and said "Practical !"
Now, when I say we talked a lot, people who knew Arthur are maybe going to have some scepticism. No doubt we were friends - it's not that - But - Arthur - He talked like Mushmouth. Mushmouth from Alabama. I loved introducing him to folks on the road. Kids would come up asking me if I could introduce them to greatness and I'd take them over to Arthur and they'd ask him about some old record and he'd start talking and they'd be standing there dumbstruck and I'd act like I knew what he was saying. And I'd catch him sometimes - that accent would get even heavier around the more affluent types. He knew very, very clearly that little white college kids would pay good money for an "authentic" experience and he could lay it on thick. Where that talk came from I don't know. I knew his mom and spoke to his sisters and brothers a little. They were well spoken. One time we were in Nashville. The local papers made a big deal about his concert. It was the event of the month. Arthur had gone to college in Nashville (in the marching band with a big hat during football games) and some of his old classmates came to see him. Nice guys, real gentlemen. "Tell me what young Arthur was like ?" "We could never understand a word he was saying".
Every time I look for a number on my phone - A - Arthur Doyle - one of the first names that comes up - It's still there. He's been dead about a year now, but I still can't believe I'm not going to get a call, I'm not going to hear that sweet, little girl, laugh and hear him call "My brother, when are you coming to Birmingham ?". So honored that he let me add a little shuffle beat, a little second line to his sound and that he trusted me to sing along with those field hollers he said were inspired by Michael Jackson. All those times we harmonized on "Stormy Weather", elaborating and scatting. That's how I learned "Stormy Weather" includes the lines "Whoop whitey up the head".
Years ago we're driving through Kentucky. A sunny day, country passing by. My first wife, Leslie Q, was in the band. She asked "Arthur, do you have any kids ?" He thought a minute. "Three or four ... You know .... Paris".
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