Rahsaan Roland Kirk


Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute, and many other instruments. He was renowned for his onstage vitality, during which virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the ability to play several instruments simultaneously.

Life

Kirk was born Ronald Theodore Kirk in Columbus, Ohio, where he lived in a neighborhood known as Flytown. He became blind at two years old, which he said was a result of improper medical treatment. As a teenager, Kirk studied at the Ohio State School for the Blind. By age fifteen he was on the road playing rhythm and blues on weekends with Boyd Moore's band. According to saxophonist Hank Crawford, "He would be like this 14 year-old blind kid playing two horns at once. They would bring him out and he would tear the joint up." Hank heard him during this period and said he was unbelievable. He remarked, "Now they had him doing all kinds of goofy stuff but he was playing the two horns and he was playing the shit out of them. He was an original from the beginning." Kirk felt compelled by a dream to transpose two letters in his first name to make '"Roland". In 1970, Kirk added "Rahsaan" to his name after hearing it in a dream.
Kirk was politically outspoken. During his concerts, between songs he often talked about topical issues, including African-American history and the Civil Rights Movement. His monologues were often laced with satire and absurdist humor. According to comedian Jay Leno, when Leno toured with Kirk as Kirk's opening act, Kirk would introduce him by saying, "I want to introduce a young brother who knows the black experience and knows all about the white devils.... Please welcome Jay Leno!"
In 1975, Kirk suffered a major stroke which led to partial paralysis of one side of his body. He continued to perform and record, modifying his instruments to enable him to play with one arm. At a live performance at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London he even managed to play two instruments, and carried on to tour internationally and to appear on television.
He died from a second stroke in 1977, the morning after performing in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana University Student Union in Bloomington, Indiana.

Instruments and techniques

Kirk's musical career spans from 1955 until his death in 1977. He preferred to lead his own bands and rarely performed as a sideman, although he did record with arranger Quincy Jones, drummer Roy Haynes and worked with bassist Charles Mingus. One of his best-known recorded performances is the lead flute and solo on Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova", a 1964 hit song repopularized in the Austin Powers films.
Kirk's multi-instrumentality was credited as having a substantial musical conception. This inclusivity included blues music, a love of stride piano and early jazz, and an appreciation for pop tunes. But his vision was much wider than most of his contemporaries. According to producer Joel Dorn, he was also hugely knowledgeable about classical music. Pieces by Saint-Saens, Hindemith, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Villa-Lobos would all feature on his albums over the years, alongside standards, pop songs and original compositions. Rahsaan's influences went beyond jazz and consequentially, he preferred the term 'Black Classical Music.'
His playing was generally rooted in soul jazz or hard bop, but Kirk's knowledge of jazz history allowed him to draw from many elements of the music's past, from ragtime to swing and free jazz. Kirk also absorbed classical influences, and his artistry reflected elements of pop music by composers such as Smokey Robinson and Burt Bacharach, as well as Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and other jazz musicians. The live album Bright Moments is an example of one of his shows.
Kirk played and collected many musical instruments, mainly multiple saxophones, clarinets and flutes. His primary saxophones were a standard tenor saxophone, stritch, and a manzello. A number of his instruments were exotic or homemade. Kirk modified instruments himself to accommodate his simultaneous playing technique. Critic Gary Giddins wrote that Kirk's tenor playing alone was enough to bring him "renown".
Usually, he appeared on stage with all three horns hanging around his neck, and at times he would play a number of these horns at once, harmonizing with himself, or sustain a note for lengthy durations by using circular breathing. He used the multiple horns to play true chords, essentially functioning as a one-man saxophone section. Kirk insisted that he was only trying to emulate the sounds he heard in his head. Even while playing two or three saxophones at once, the music was intricate, powerful jazz with a strong feel for the blues.
Kirk was also an influential flute player, including recorders. According to Giddins, Kirk was the first major jazz innovator on flute after Eric Dolphy. Kirk employed several techniques, including singing or humming into the flute at the same time as playing. Another was to play the standard transverse flute at the same time as a nose flute.
He played a variety of other instruments, including whistles; often kept a gong within reach; the clarinet, harmonica, English horn, and was a competent trumpeter. He utilized unique approaches, such as playing a trumpet with a saxophone mouthpiece.
He also made use of non-musical devices, such as alarm clocks, sirens, or a section of common garden hose. From the early 1970s, his studio recordings used tape-manipulated musique concrète and primitive electronic sounds before such things became commonplace.
The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color was a unique album in the annals of recorded jazz and popular music. It was a two-LP set, with Side 4 apparently "blank", the label not indicating any content. However, once word of "the secret message" got around among Rahsaan's fans, one would find that about 12 minutes into Side 4 appeared the first of two telephone answering machine messages recorded by Kirk, the second following soon thereafter. The surprise impact of these segments appearing on "blank" Side 4 was lost on the CD reissue of this album.
He gleaned information on what was happening in the world via radio and TV. His later recordings often incorporated his spoken commentaries on current events, including Richard Nixon's involvement in the Watergate scandal. The 3-Sided Dream album was a "concept album" which incorporated "found" or environmental sounds and tape loops, tapes being played backwards, etc. Snippets of Billie Holiday singing are also heard briefly. The album even confronts the rise of influence of computers in society, as Rahsaan threatens to pull the plug on the machine trying to tell him what to do.
In the album Other Folks' Music the spoken words of Paul Robeson, another outspoken black artist, can be briefly heard.

Material loss

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Rahsaan Roland Kirk among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Legacy and influence

As leader

;King Records
;Argo/Cadet/Chess Records
;Prestige Records
;Mercury Records
;Limelight Records
;Verve Records
;Atlantic Records
;Warner Bros. Records
  • 1976: The Return of the 5000 Lb. Man
  • 1977: Kirkatron
  • 1977: Boogie-Woogie String Along for Real
;Posthumous releases of new material
;Compilations
With Jaki Byard
With Tubby Hayes
With Roy Haynes
With Quincy Jones
With Les McCann
With Charles Mingus
With Tommy Peltier