Clarinetist, saxophonist, and flutist Charlie Gabriel is a fourth-generation jazz musician from New Orleans where he still lives and is now Preservation Hall Foundation Musical Director. Raised in a classically trained musical family that emigrated from Santo Domingo in the 1850s, Gabriel began playing clarinet professionally with the Eureka Brass Band when he was eleven years old. During World War II, his father, clarinetist and drummer Martin Manuel “Manny” Gabriel often sent his son as a substitute on gigs. Charlie recalls how the musicians with whom he played —T-Boy Remy, Kid Humphrey, Kid Sheik, Kid Shots, Kid Clayton, and Kid Howard— also raised him and brought him home after the gigs. 

Charlie came to Detroit at the age of fourteen and was asked to join the Lionel Hampton band at age sixteen. In the early ‘70s, Charlie was a member of Aretha Franklin’s Orchestra. He continued to play throughout the U.S. and abroad with many ensembles including the Marcus Belgrave Louis Armstrong Tribute Orchestra (which also included KCH regulars Paul Keller and Pete Siers) and in another vocal tribute ensemble with jazz singer Joan Belgrave. His CD, Live at the Kerrytown Concert House (recorded with Red Richards), won the grand prize for 1994 best Foreign CD, presented by the Hot Club de Limoges in France.  Charlie Gabriel’s  connections to Detroit, the Belgrave legacy and to Kerrytown Concert House make this concert’s collaboration at this venue with longtime colleagues Keller and Siers and with Marcus and Mie Belgrave’s son, saxophonist Kasan Belgrave, especially meaningful.

 In a career spanning countless genres, Gabriel has performed with Tony Bennett, Frankie Avalon, Brenda Lee, Mary Wells, Eddie Willis, Joe Hunter, and many other early Motown artists. Gabriel sums up the influence of his fellow musicians: “I have many, many people inside of me that I have rubbed shoulders with, and I got something from each one of them. It’s all wrapped up inside of me, and by me still playing today and still able to go around the universe, I give to them all these other things I have from those that I have came in contact with.”