| | Arthur Doyle is an underground superstar. Whether or not he ever sees the mainstream light of day depends largely on a practically backwards in time, jazz media, a couldn't find true artistry with two hands and a flashlight, major labels, and a culture that seems to have turned its back on improvised anything.
* At first, when I was about three or four, I saw Louis Armstrong on TV and then Duke Ellington. I guess Louis Armstrong was my first influence. When I was a kid, I wanted to write him and tell him to send me a trumpet so I could play the same like him. I saw Duke Ellington on TV and he was my major influence also. I went to high school in Birmingham, Alabama and I first jazz record was Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and Miles Smiles that I got through a record club. My father always bought a record on Fridays because he listened to jazz too. I just wanted to play and sound like John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins.
I think John Coltrane is what you call one of the Messiahs. John Coltrane played sheets of sounds. The first record I had of John Coltrane was Blue Train, no, the first time I heard John Coltrane was Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. I thought that was how the tenor saxophone was supposed to sound like, him, Sonny Rollins, Wardell Gray, Coleman Hawkins, people like that, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, people like that, Charles Lloyd also on flute.
Allah has had the biggest impact on my life, God the Creator, also Jesus and everybody else, and then my mother and father, brothers and sisters.
Recently, I have been trying to incorporate the European system. That is a system that I developed. Right now, I am playing a lot with shades, loudness and softness, microtone, larger than a whole step, smaller than a half step. That is what I am into now. A lot of it incorporates scales and arpeggios and stuff like that.
A good description of what I am doing right now is free jazz/soul music. But I also think there is room for improvement on that besides playing bebop. Sonny Simmons, I saw that Sonny Simmons has already passed that, he and Sonny Murray.
Sometimes it is a spiritual happening. Things just come. I don't know where they come from. Sometimes I sound like John Coltrane playing the horn, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, and Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler.
I am trying to please the gods with my music. I think if I please the gods then my music will be happening one day, if not now, then when I die. Allah guides it. Allah guides it. *
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