Jazz Articles about Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Brotherman in the Fatherland

by Mike Perciaccante
April 18, 2006

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a master whose genius had to be seen to be believed. His live performances were legendary. Unfortunately Kirk left us in 1977; although we can never truly experience his magic live, we can still hear the electricity of his live performances.

Brotherman in the Fatherland is Hyena Records' third Kirk offering, after a reissue of The Man Who Cried Fire and the highly regarded Compliments of the Mysterious Phantom. Like the latter CD, Brotherman ...

Roland Kirk: Kirk In Copenhagen

by David Rickert
September 16, 2004

To fully appreciate his artistry, Roland Kirk truly needed to be experienced live. Sure, playing three instruments at once is an incredible feat, but wouldn't it be great to have seen it? Unfortunately for most of us, we can only be satisfied with recordings such as this one from Club Montmarte, Denmark's famous jazz club.

Live, Kirk barrels through tunes with an almost reckless abandon, making judicious use of the noisemaking possibilities of his various instruments and firing ...

Bright Moments: The Life & Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk

by Bob Jacobson
March 3, 2004

John Kruth Welcome Rain Publishers ISBN: 1566491053

Seven years ago at a jam session in Washington, D.C.'s Twins Lounge, the house band pianist called Rahsaan Roland Kirk's “Bright Moments". To his dismay, none of the four tenor sax players, who had probably memorized hundreds of songs between them, knew this tune, one of the most dynamic and beautiful in the jazz repertoire. Such is the unawareness of one of the greatest performing and composing ...

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Compliments of the Mysterious Phantom

by C. Michael Bailey
May 2, 2003

If Sun Ra was jazz music's Timothy Leary, then Rahsaan Roland Kirk was its Elijah.

Kirk, jazz music's most iconoclastic character, was also one of its most gifted. Once dismissed as a circus sideshow, he has seen his popularity, as well as his influence, steadily increase over the past twenty years. Kirk has been called many things'shaman, sage, charlatan, sideshow barker. But Rahsaan Roland Kirk represents the free spirit of jazz. He was a fearless improviser who ...

Roland Kirk: Domino

by David Adler
February 1, 2001

When Roland Kirk (pre-Rahsaan) issued Domino in 1962, the album contained 10 tracks, which amounted to just over half an hour of music. On this reissue there are 25 tracks and nearly 80 minutes of music. What’s more, the 15 bonus tracks feature a 22-year-old Herbie Hancock, who did not appear on the original Domino at all. (Getting left on the cutting-room floor must not have thrilled the young pianist.) Bassist Vernon Martin is featured throughout all the sessions. Six ...

Roland Kirk: Domino

by C. Andrew Hovan
January 1, 2001

It seems that a great deal of reinvestigation involving the life and times of Roland Kirk focuses on his later years, once he had begun to call himself Rahsaan and had launched a successful series of recordings for Atlantic Records. Not enough attention has been given to his first recordings for Bethlehem and Argo and then the great spate of activity at Mercury. In fact, it was through his first two Mercury dates that this reviewer first became transfixed by ...

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Left Hook, Right Cross

by Robert Spencer
October 1, 1999

In the rollicking circus that is the music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, some of his forays too slavishly imitate the shallow funk grooves of his latter days, while on others, he lets his muse roam more freely, and comes up with more than a few gems on Volunteered Slavery. Of course, there is a kitschy take of as-yet Little Stevie Wonder's Sixties hit “My Cherie Amour" and - is it Dionne Warwick's? - “I Say a Little Prayer." And the ...