We bring our all-too-brief
series on Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s music to a conclusion today—but it is a rousing conclusion!
This video shows Kirk in
peak form, playing sax, a conch shell, a gong, police whistle, & eventually
using a wood chair as a percussion instrument, destroying it in the process!
The energy level is at maximum level, & also includes a great piano solo by
Ron Burton, while Kirk wanders through the audience at the Montreaux Jazz
Festival, led by his percussionist & sidekick, Joe Habao Texidor.
“Volunteered Slavery” is
the title track of a 1969 Kirk album issued on
Atlantic. He also played it as a coda to “The Old Rugged Cross” on his
masterful 1972 release, Blacknuss (& I very much regret I wasn’t able to fit a cut from that album into this
overview).
I hope you enjoyed these
selections, & if you’re new to Kirk’s music, I hope this spurs you to
explore his work further. Stay tuned next month for more Sunday music!
Image links to its source
on Wiki Commons:
“Roland Kirk playing at
Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry UK, January 1972.” Photo by Kentrethewey [link provided on Wiki Commons is
empty], who makes it available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
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