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(Not So) Standards

By Ludovico Granvassu

For decades jazz standards have provided improvisers with both a vehicle and a testing ground for their creativity. In some cases they have taken more liberties than others. This week we focus on not-so-standard renditions of jazz standards, from “Take Five" to “My Favorite Things," from “Mood Indigo" to “'Round Midnight," two hours of jazz played with boundless creativity (and a good dose of humor!). Happy listening! Playlist Farmers Market “Take Five -Take 11" from ...

Roland Kirk: Here Comes The Whistleman

By Duncan Heining

This December, it will be thirty-nine years since Rahsaan Roland Kirk split the scene for good. He was forty-one and about two-thirds of that short life span had been spent as a professional musician. He might not have been around long but he left behind a powerful legacy that may have no parallel in jazz or any other modern music. He might not have courted controversy but somehow it kept finding him. For some critics and musicians, he ...

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: The Case of the Three Sided Dream

By William Levine

Rahsaan Roland Kirk The Case of the Three Sided Dream Monoduo Films 2016 Rahsaan Roland Kirk as the natural successor to Bird and Coltrane? It's certainly a debatable point, and it might overlook the place of Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman in the evolution of saxophone playing during the first post-bop generations, but The Case of the Three Sided Dream, a documentary directed by Adam Kahan, makes a tenable case for reassessing the multi-reed ...

Roland Kirk: The Limelight/Verve Albums

By C. Andrew Hovan

Several years ago when this writer was looking for rarities to include in the column Jazz From the Vinyl Junkyard, the chances for the medium to make a huge comeback seemed to be slim at best. Fast forward and it seems that vinyl is the new black, with efforts to market it to a fresh and younger audience. The availability of simple to operate and affordable turntables aids the process. And until just recently, Stereophile magazine had an entire column, ...

Roland Kirk: Four Classic Albums

By David Rickert

Roland Kirk was arguably the most exciting soloist the jazz world has ever seen. Blind since childhood, Kirk developed a unique sensitivity to sound that he parlayed into all sorts of interesting ideas, most notably the ability to play two or three instruments simultaneously. For a while the vaudeville nature of this trick overshadowed his prodigious talents as a soloist. He was capable of great tenderness as well as bursts of aggressive lines and knew how to construct a solo ...

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Spirits Up Above - The Atlantic Years 1965-1976

By Chris May

Rahsaan Roland KirkSpirits Up Above: The Atlantic Years 1965-1976Warner Jazz2012He was as funky as singer James Brown. With three horns in his mouth, he sounded like the entire JB reed section. And onstage, with a truckload of instruments around his neck, he was the hardest working man in jazz business. Saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist and multiple custom-reed instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1936-77) livened up the music scene like few other artists before or ...

Jazz Icons: Rahsaan Roland Kirk Live in '63 and '67

By C. Michael Bailey

Jazz Icons: Rahsaan Roland Kirk live in '63 and '67Jazz Icons2008In her forward to the Jazz Icons Series 3: Rahsaan Roland Kirk live in '63 and '67, Dorthann Kirk praised the DVD for showing her husband's talent “as a complete musician and not just a musical freak who played three horns simultaneously." That said, Kirk may not ever be seen as a jazz musician. He was no more typical a musician than Art Tatum. ...

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Classic Black Classical Musician

By Tom Greenland

As the thirtieth anniversary of his passing (Dec. 5th, 1977) approaches, Rahsaan Roland Kirk remains a palpable presence and pervading influence, musically and personally. A complex man of seemingly paradoxical traits, he was a childlike prankster with old-soul wisdom, a self-touting egoist who humbly honored his musical forefathers, a tradition-bound futuristic pioneer, a highly combative man who'd walk that extra mile for a friend, a vaudevillian show-boater who took music more seriously than most--in sum, an unorthodox and ultimately uncategorizable ...

Roland Kirk with Jack McDuff: Kirk's Work

By Troy Collins

Technically his third album, following Introducing Roland Kirk (Chess, 1960), and a previously unissued R&B session (Triple Threat), Kirk's Work pre-dates the boundless surrealism of his post-Rahsaan era. Sharing the bill with organist Jack McDuff, the record is commonly regarded as a fairly straight-ahead date made years before Kirk gradually transformed from a stunning virtuoso multi-instrumentalist into an iconic musical shaman. While not as outrageous as some of Kirk's later albums, this sublime 1961 date has its fair share of ...

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Brotherman to the Fatherland

By Kurt Gottschalk

Of all the people trying to put jazz on the pop charts in the anything-goes period of the late '60s and early '70s--all the way up to Albert Ayler, for the love of Pete--probably the most successful at bridging the gap without watering it down was Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Long before the Steven Bernsteins and JA Granellis of the world were inflecting pop covers with jazz energy (and ignoring the instrumental and lethargic pop renditions of his contemporaries), Kirk was ...

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Brotherman in the Fatherland

By Rex Butters

The Masked Announcer, Joel Dorn, once again conjures up a brilliant, unheard tape by the late, lamented, legendary Rahsaan Roland Kirk. This time he brings us 34-year-old performances recorded for German radio and television (a later DVD edition, perhaps?), and officially released here for the first time. Relaxed and happy within the context of his regular working band, Rahsaan bares it all, from inhuman technique to limitless imagination, oceanic heart and soul. The collection focuses on Kirk's mastery of the ...

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Brotherman in the Fatherland

By David Rickert

It must have been something to catch a live performance by Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Of course he plays multiple instruments at the same time on albums, but wouldn't it have been cool to actually see him do it? Unfortunately, this trick tended to obscure Kirk's talents as an improviser and composer in some circles, as his detractors labeled him a sideshow instead of a serious musician.

Brotherman In the Fatherland, a 1972 concert recording from Germany's Funkhaus, will ...