Using his saxophone or his flutes, sometimes singing, humming, and delivering either mysterious or comical monologues, Kirk- succeeding and missing- sought a majesty that was an amalgamation of sources. His work reached back beyond the 20th century time line into the fields and the field hollers, the hymns, shouts, and spirituals, embraced the work songs and the portraits of gritty greasy Negro life found in the work of wanderers like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Leadbelly: and absorb the variations on the pagents that arose in the parades, street beats, picnics, and late-night erotic rituals in New Orleans. His improvising was informed by lyric, sore-headed bears like Sidney Bechet and Ben Webster, the sophisticated harmony of Coleman Hawkins and Don Byas, Lester Young’s sailing, dreamy-eyed audacity, and the innovations brought to the saxophone by the plaintive, competitive, witty, naïve, jaded, and malcontent of Charlie Parker.
There was the feeling of the high-wire act in his circular breathing and something of the bitter loon in his sudden exclamations at the end of torrid passages where sorrow could so tangle up with joy that they were like two sweating, biting, wrestlers fused into a force made even more powerful by its ambiguity. Whimsy just as easily flowed from him, the willful play one used to observe in some after hours uptown joint when an old Negro dancer would take to the floor and toy with the repertoire of taps, slides, and turns that gave his art such casual aristocracy.
In Kirk’s tone there could be great tenderness or outrage at the strip-mining of the spirit by materialism. The universal bruises of the heart and the conclusions of affection that are perhaps our most idealistic forms of comfort were ever at the center of his sensibility, which is why he was able to say it all clearly in the monologue that introduces “Old Rugged Cross”.---
“ Now there’s the black cross, the green cross, the white cross, the double cross, the crisscross, and the lost cross. And the cross gets awful heavy at different times, but one is supposed to keep going on and carrying the cross on his shoulder, because you ain’t supposed to let no cross cross you up. You supposed to let a cross help you across. And if you let a cross help you get across, you won’t get crossed up but you’ll be on the cross ‘casue you done got across on the cross. So if you can remember this, you won’t get lost on the cross while you trying to get across. So we just here to let you know about it, I know that you knew already, ‘cause y’all the hippest people in the world, hip, black and white. But you still know that you got a cross you must deal with. So when it crosses you up, go on and deal with it, and leave it alone.” R. Roland Kirk
(liner notes --Stanley Crouch)
Thank's for the add ;-)) Good tracks here too !!! You can download for free 3 new tracks on our page, hope you'll enjoy ;-) Greetings from South fo France Peace and Groove HappY-T
"Our purpose is to explore and create in depth, the limitless dimensions of the art form"
With Lloyd Haber (drums) ; Jaribu Shahid (bass) ; Abraham Burton (tenor sax) ; Omar Kabir (trumpet)
Lloyd Haber has selected 6 tracks for the listeners of Jazz A Part radio show. These 6 tracks are 6 introductions to the universe of the Freedom Art Quartet... http://jazzapart. free. fr
hello from switzerland, your music is great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sincerely Peter Tschirky autor of the first Eddie Harris book "Eddie Harris sings the Blues" www. eddieharrisbuch. ch
Hi Friends! How are you? It..s summertime. After a long period of rain and more rain up here in the Northern part of Europé it..s finally sunshine today. Horray!!!
Music? Oh, we..re still so addicted. It occupies our minds. We listen to an awful lot of music, sometimes even to our own… If you haven..t heard any of it try whatever of it and find out if it suits the mood you..re in. Let the rest of the summer be nice and kind. Love from OaX ‘n’ YaN of Joxfield ProjeX
Thanks for the add! My father always told me that Rahsaan Roland Kirk was one of the baddest horn players in the world. He was right. Mr. Kirk was all that and more.
DEAR BELOVED FRIENDS!
COPERNIC HAS MADE A WONDERFUL
DANCEFLOOR BLOCKBUSTER REMIX OF
JOXFIELD PROJEX´ “IS IT YOU?”
WE INVITE YOU TO TAKE PART OF THE MAJESTIC RESULT
JUST CLICK BELOW
(Or Use The Joxfield ProjeX´ Blue Link For Your Adventures)
Thanks for adding me to your friends. Rahsaan is my absolute favorite musician ever ... enough so that I named my first child after him. It's always been one of my dreams to research and write a real biography of him. Thanks for honoring him with your page.
HI AND HO FRIENDS!!!
EVER THOUGHT OF THE BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER – A JOXFIELD PROJEX ALBUM !!!
AN ESSENTIAL JOURNEY THROUGH UNIVERSAL SOUNDS AND SPACES
Hi!
He was truely a limitless man, mr Kirk. No matter what kind of jazz he played he always did it with his own new approach. So, whatever music you´re dealing with, there´s a lot to learn about this by him, he was a great model. The music we´re plying is noisy, load, expressive, mostly improvised over pattern beat structures. If we, when we play it, every time could put in some of that Rahsaan Roland Kirk approach to it, then it would have feld like some kind of victory.
ThanX for adding us as Friends.
Love.
Joxfield ProjeX
can't help lovin' that man - bright moments to all the rahsaan fans out there!
thanks for the add
peace always
phil
(might have to strap on the three horns today...)
ALRIGHT, I WANT TO KNOW WHAT SONG GOT ALL YOU ALL INTO THE ONE AND ONLY RO'?
FOR ME IT'S A MEMORY I'LL NEVER FORGET AND THE TRACK WAS "OLD RUGGED CROSS". WHAT A SOLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOW START SPILLING YOURS....
