Book Review

BY PIOTR MICHALOWSKI

Saxophonist and clarinetist Charlie Gabriel is one of Detroit’s busiest and most versatile jazz musicians: one day he is playing bop at the jazz festival, then he hits the road with the Preservation Hall Jazz band of New Orleans. Few players move so easily and authentically between such different stylistic worlds in a creative manner, because such versatility is often a function of financial necessity rather than of artistic choice. But Charlie Gabriel’s way of playing is deeply rooted in his personal history, as we learn from this fascinating book written by another member of his talented extended family, Larry Gabriel.

The progenitor, on U.S. soil, of the clan, was Narcisse Gabriel, who came to New Orleans from Santo Domingo in 1856. Larry Gabriel has researched the subsequent history of the family, which seems to have reproduced quite abundantly, with its two main branches in New Orleans and Detroit, and has distilled a large body of information into a series of vignettes. Family histories can be tedious, filled with uninteresting everyday detail, but Gabriel has avoided this trap. He has such great stories to tell, and he writes them so well, that one is immediately drawn into the world of his family, but he also knows how to provide enough social and historical background to create a fascinating portrait of a slice of Afro-American life in the past century. It seems that everyone in this family was a musician, and along the way they played with many of the jazz greats, but, fortunately for us, one of them also grew up to be a talented writer.

SEMJA readers will be most fascinated by stories about two members of the fourth generation: Clarence Ford and Charlie Gabriel. The former lived for a while in Detroit, but is best known for his many years on the road with Fats Domino. Charlie is, of course, a mainstay on the Motor City scene, but the story about how he rediscovered his New Orleans roots while touring in France with Aretha Franklin is too good to reveal in a review! Just as interesting are the myriad other Gabriel’s, who took part, to various degrees, in the often difficult history of modern American music, often carving out a living in difficult times. Larry Gabriel preserves their fascinating stories for us, and when you reach the end, you get two great family recipes for gumbo and shrimp Creole!

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