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Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Let's start with what makes this album ordinary. A mid-fifties quartet session (piano, drums, bass & sax) with a few well-known standards and four "original" blues, recorded lo-fi but not atrociously by a small label. The rhythm section consists of what must be obscure studio players and the leader is a 20 year old making his debut. And the durn thing is over in under 30 minutes. Nothing to get excited about, except the 20 year old in question is Roland Kirk, (Rahsaan would be added years later according to a dream) a guy incapable of making a typical album.

From the first moments of Roland's Theme, there is clearly more than one saxophone belting out the boppy melody followed by a chorus on some mystery instrument (dubbed a manzello by Kirk & which possesses the tone of an alto sax experiencing an identity crisis) then very solid broad-toned tenor playing with the ensemble sound closing out the number. No overdubs. Kirk was not only a multi-instrumentalist, but a simultaneous multi-instrumentalist capable of playing up to 3 saxophones at a time. Slow Groove reveals that Kirk's ensemble attack can be even more effective on a slow blues, where the interjection of the harmonized saxes take on vocal qualities. On the venerable ballads Stormy Weather & The Nearness of You, Kirk does use overdubbing to fully explore the melodies. A fairly bold move, considering how much flack the critically respected pianist Lennie Tristano received about this time when he released an album containing overdubbing and tape-speeding. Stormy Weather is more successful, sounds like the two different lines (tenor & manzello) respond to each other, while The Nearness of You comes across as somewhat stiff and disjointed. A La Carte shows that Kirk must've put his tenor to good use in some r&b bands spouting what by then were already cliches. Kirk focuses on his strich (another Rahsaanified sax cousin) during a balladic Easy Street. Triple Threat is a shuffling jump blues worthy of Louis Jordan with a shave & a haircut coda making clear Kirk knew his tongue from his cheek. A couple nicely concise piano solos are scattered throughout, but it's really Kirk's show and he's the only reason to be interested in this one.

Certainly not a bad debut, Kirk accomplishes feats never before put on record, but really this is a historical curiousity compared the rich merger of ballads, blues, classical, and avant garde Kirk would achieve later. The title don't lie. Just in case any of this still strikes you as ordinary, Kirk had been blind since the age of two.

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Nobody paid Kirk's first recordings any mind (they weren't available until about the time he died) and evidently, given the title of this session, Kirk didn't either. He's teamed up with Ira Sullivan, who mostly sticks with Miles-ish trumpet, but also whips out the tenor saxophone every so often. While a more versatile rhythm section than Early Roots (guest appearances by an organ and tambourine!), the focus is still on horn statements rather than group dynamics. Fairly mellow for a Kirk record, styled on the quieter side of the funk and hard bop favored at the time . Can't understand why anyone would accuse him of freakish gimmickry after the reasonably sober playing presented here.

The Call opens with standalone solos (can Kirk truly be said to take a solo when he's got more than one sax going?) by everybody but the drummer then becomes a nifty organ groove tune. Very nice. There's a low-key tenor sax battle featured on the Horace Silver rip-off Soul Station; Sullivan sounds more interesting when playing trumpet but check out the eerie between-the-cracks notes Kirk uses to end his part of the exchange. Our Waltz does a good job of not screaming that IT'S A WALTZ, DUMMY (unlike some of Sonny Rollin's efforts a few years earlier). As a further indication of solid musicianship, Kirk sticks strictly to the manzello (imagine a soprano puckering) on a gorgeous version of the standard Our Love Is Here to Stay. Spirit Girl probably owes its very existence to Mingus' Better Get It In Your Soul, but comes across too laid back at times (Kirk's solo) and too forced at others (the static drumming). Kirk does decide to get a little goofy on Jack the Ripper, tooting a whistle every so often during the melody of another grooving tune that would've fit fine into the repetoire of any hard bop band.

A solid session (too much so for me), it highlights Kirk's grasp of the funk and hard bop vernacular that was already being disturbed by the emergence of the new avant garde. Fortunately, Kirk's knowledge and skill were broad enough he'd find ways the integrate what he had already done with any and all new developments.

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Readers Comments Guy Peters emoebeffer@hotmail.com Hey, those are damn fine reviews. It's cool that you review some albums by one of jazz' most colorful figures. With guys like Kirk, people often forget that the guy was an outstanding and innovative musician too, always willing to experiment. I'm not familiar with the guy's early stuff, since I only own two albums, "rip rig and panic" and "the inflated tear", which i bought, i must confess, because they were cheap and i read somewhere that these were classics. Anyway, since you started with the two first albums, i presume you're gonna tackle the later 'classics' too? About the overdubs: I thought he DID use them until the moment he'd learnt to play with circulary breathing (around 'rip rig and panic' (?), just like Paul Butterfield on his harmonica. That enabled him to play his weird horns without really inhaling (or something like that). I may be wrong, though!

Here Kirk works with a soulful organ trio and proves he's got groove. Lots of tenor playing as befits the traditional setting, along with ensemble work and a flute interlude. The organist in question is Jack McDuff, then at the beginning of a lengthy recording career, who has the good sense to build around Kirk's playing rather than compete. McDuff is every bit as strong as Jimmy Smith, maybe a little bluesier, and can actually make the B-3 plink. Studio veteran Art Taylor is more awake than the drummers on previous Kirk albums and provides some intriguing but all too occasional background accents. The bass just keeps the groove whenever the organ opts out. Since Kirk is akin to human pipe organ already, he and the Hammond B-3 are able to conjure a very full sound together.

That full sound first shows on Three for Dizzy when Kirk uses several saxes (led with gruff tenor) in a blues call and response with McDuff. The standard Makin' Whoopee is taken uptempo, and while Kirk gets a chance to dig in with his tenor solo, the performance as a whole is overheated and forced. Kirk's flute playing gets a great introduction on the lightly swinging Funk Underneath; begins with a clean ("legitimate") tone, but by the time the rhythm doubles up Kirk is alternating a variety of guttural and breathy notes. Wonderful plus a catchy organ solo (hear that one held note underneath? Kirk must've cause he'd be doing that with saxes a few years later). Goes to show Kirk's sense of dynamics could apply to a single instrument just as well as a mouthful. The quartet gets aggressive on Kirk's Work, messes around with exotic rhythms (with mixed success) during Doin' the 68 and pulls off a beautifully nuanced tenor sax (well, okay, so sounds like a strich solo too) torch ballad on Too Late Now. The melody of Skater's Waltz sounds very familiar, whatever its source, it's another bright swinger that succeeds where Makin' Whoopee failed.

Satisfys both as a groovy organ combo album and as a snapshot of Kirk's expanding resources.

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If I were to continue the pattern established so far I would be tempted to hear this record as Kirk's take on bebop. Which, with as much territory as this album covers, is likely a dang blatant oversimplification (even for ME). Kirk's with a standard rhythm section that includes sidemen well-versed in bop: Charlie Persip drummed up Gillespie's mid-50s big band and Hank Jones (who's only on about half the tunes) could keep pace with Bud Powell on the keys. And there is indeed plenty of bopping, but also loads of soulful balladeering and mimicry and twisted blues. Like the previous albums there is a great subtlety in the way Kirk juxtaposes instruments and interjects multiple horns, but unlike before there is little sense of restraint. Kirk is not hedging any bets here, he's just playing what he wants.

Kicks off with a half note from the piano already in progress: Kirk blows the catchy stubby melody through a few saxophones and launches into a speedy blues flute solo over old as New Orleans stop-time. Phew! He'd make many recordings of Three for the Festival over the years, but none topped this. Moon Song (a ballad akin to How High the Moon with lyrics sappy enough to discourage its considerable melodic charms) is taken at a strut tempo with Kirk constantly and seamlessly switching between tenor and manzello solos. A Sack Full of Soul marches along with a catchy stubby melody and a couple gritty ensemble passages plus a fine solo by the other pianist, Richard Wyands. Yearning is what the Haunted Melody is. Very refreshing to hear all the drum activity in both takes of Blues for Alice (one of Charlie Parker's lesser known tunes) continually prodding Kirk's relatively laid back tenor and extroverted manzello. We Free Kings is indeed a cover of a tune carolers might be familiar with; given the introduction this selection might've been prompted by Coltrane's droning appropriation of Greensleeves recorded at about the same time. That impression is given more creedence by the manzello solo later in the piece that takes after Coltrane's soprano style. The flute playing featured on You Did It, You Did It blurs music and speech into blues. Kirk & the rest of the rhythm section do a dead-on impression of Sonny Rollins circa 1958 on the wittily swinging ballad Some Kind of Love. Really, I don't think even Sonny's hairdresser could tell the difference - leastways until the strich solo. Rather than copying a solo style, Kirk attempts to duplicate Tadd Dameron's big band bebop arranging skills on My Delight; while not as convincing as 16 horns, Kirk does convey the general impression down to the interpolation of a section with afro-cuban rhythm.

While it lacks the unity of other Kirk albums, the variety of approaches and hard-driving rhythm section make for a record that gets better with every listen.

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