Roland Kirk Other

From Roland Kirk's "classical" period, Other Folks' Music is perhaps his most dizzying and troubling recording. Meant to be both a tribute and a pointer for the next move in modern black music, Other Folks' Music is, when all is said and done, a very private altar adorned with much of Kirk's personal iconography. Recorded in 1976 using a fairly large band supplemented by Hilton Ruiz' funky Latin angularity on piano, Kirk created a lament and a testimony for other artists to add to - though no one ever has, and certainly not Wynton Marsalis. The set opens eerily with the deep voice of Paul Robeson scratchily coming from a record player on "Water for Robeson and Williams." The largely chamber piece is a folk melody, mournfully suggestive of a slave song turned in on itself so that it now echoes out over history…

Whether or not the four individual albums packaged with in Aces Back to Back are among Rahsaan Roland Kirk's finest is of no consequence. The fact that they have been assembled in a package that offers the listener a sense of Kirk's development and continuity is the issue here. And in this way, Aces Back to Back is a supreme collection. The four albums included - Left & Right, Rahsaan Rahsaan, Prepare Thyself to Deal With a Miracle, and Other Folks Music - date from 1968 to 1976 and chart dimensional growth of Kirk's completely original music. There's the outsider wizardry of Left & Right that melds the innovations of John Coltrane and Scott Joplin across an entire range of highly experimental yet wonderfully human music. Guests included Roy Haynes, Alice Coltrane, Julius Watkins, and many others in a band that ranged from a quartet to a full orchestra…

Multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk leaves the stritch, manzello and other exotic instruments at home for this all-flute outing from his pre-"Rahsaan" days. Consisting mostly of originals, with a couple of show tunes and a swinging take on John Lewis' "Django" thrown in, I Talk to the Spirits provides the best sampling of Kirk's unique flute style. He hums along with himself as he plays, inserts pieces of lyrics when the mood hits, finds overtones and multi-part harmonies as he blows madly through the upper register and sails sweetly through the lower. Included here is the original version of "Serenade to a Cuckoo," a song later taken to rock audiences with its inclusion on the first Jethro Tull album. (In fact, for the Tull fan who wants to hear where Ian Anderson borrowed his style, I Talk to the Spirits is the place to go)…

Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata (1971) {2014 Japan Jazz Best Collection 1000 Series WPCR-27919}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 244 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 88 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 15 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24-bit remaster
© 1971, 2014 Atlantic / Rhino / Warner Japan / WEA | WPCR-27919 | Jazz Best Collection 1000 Series
Jazz / Hard Bop / Post Bop / Modern Creative / Reeds

Features 24 bit remastering and comes with a mini-description. A totally amazing album – and one of the clearest examples of Roland Kirk's genius approach to reeds! The set's essentially solo, and features Kirk playing without any tape tricks or overdubbing – but still at a level that has multiple saxophones layered on top of one another – thanks to his creative approach to playing more than one instrument at once, and groundbreaking use of circular breathing! The record has these fantastic throbbing pulsating reed lines –with one horn blowing rhythm, and one playing an adventurous solo – and both being blown live a the same time, in a style that's still very soulful and swinging overall – and amazingly done without any sense of overindulgence.

Roland Kirk - Rip, Rig and Panic & Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith (1990) {EmArcy ‎832164-2 rec 1965-1967}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 386 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 162 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 22 Mb | 5% repair rar
©1965-67, 1990 EmArcy / PolyGram | ‎832 164-2
Jazz / Hard Bop / Post Bop / Saxophone

Roland Kirk was a sublime one-man musical circus, whether playing three reeds at once, overblowing a flute, blasting a whistle to end a solo, or simply playing tenor saxophone with as much passion and invention as almost any other musician in jazz. This CD combines two complete Kirk LPs, Rip, Rig and Panic from 1965 and Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith from 1967. The former is justifiably one of Kirk's most famous records, and it has possibly the most incendiary backing group he ever recorded with–secure, inventive, and prodding.