Rahsaan Roland Kirk (Tenor Sax, Manzello, Stritch, various flutes and whistles)
George Gruntz (Piano)
Guy Pedersen (Bass)
Daniel Humair (Drums)

Moon Song
Lover
Three For The Festival
Yesterdays
Milestones

Rahsaan Roland Kirk (Tenor Sax, Manzello, Stritch, various flutes and whistles)
George Gruntz (Piano)
Guy Pedersen (Bass)
Daniel Humair (Drums)

Bags' Groove
Lover Man
There Will Never Be Another You
Three For The Festival

Rahsaan Roland Kirk (Tenor Sax, Manzello, Stritch, Clarinet, Castinets, Vocals, Various Flutes and Whistles)
Ron Burton (Piano)
Niels Henning Ørsted-Pedersen (Bass)
Alex Riel (Drums)

Blues For Alice
Blue Rol
The Shadow Of Your Smile (Theme from The Sandpiper)
Making Love After Hours
NY Theme

24-page booklet

Liner Notes by John Kruth
Foreword by Dorthaan Kirk
Cover photo by Rolf Ambor/ctsimages.com
Booklet photos by Lee Tanner, Jan Persson, Rolf Ambor, Arthur Sand, Val Wilmer
Memorabilia collage
Total time: 80 minutes

Sample of Foreword:

Thirty years after the death of Rahsaan, he continues to be discovered and rediscovered by various artists, along with a younger generation who have recorded his music, such as Derek Trucks. Many of his spoken thoughts from the stage, which sounded to some at the time like mere entertainment, have indeed become much more.

This DVD showcases his talent in the early part of his career and will show his talent as a complete musician and not just a musical freak who played three horns simultaneously. He was always aware that when musicians die, the music that they left could fall into the hands of dishonest industry executives, so he focused on the business side of the industry as well and did everything to make sure that I was aware as well.

I’m pleased, and I’m sure he would be also, to see that this DVD is being released along with other artists that he admired and respected. Thanks to Jazz Icons for being a part of keeping his name and the wealth of music that he left alive. I hope you enjoy it.

Bright Moments,
Dorthaan Kirk

Sample Liner Notes by John Kruth:

Before the Dream and After the Fact

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a dreamer of Herculean proportions. “Whenever anyone would ask him what his religion was,” his third wife and widow Dorthaan recalled, “he would always say he was of the religion of dreams because this is the way a lot of important things happened in his life.” It was in his dreams that Kirk conceived of playing two horns simultaneously. The name of his band, the Vibration Society, was also revealed to him in a dream. Then one night, he dreamt that people were calling him “Rahsaan,” chanting the name over and over again. The name signified a new greatness for him to aspire to, an extra large persona that he easily adopted. Once he changed his name, that was it, he no longer answered to Roland and would become irritable and even aggressive at times when people called him anything else.

“All the guys who were close to him used to call him ‘Ro,’” Kirk’s friend and producer at Atlantic Records Joel Dorn once told me. “I called the house one morning and said, ‘Hey Ro,’ and he said, ‘Rahsaan.’ Every time I called him ‘Ro,’ he’d say ‘Rahsaan.’ This went on and on. Then he told me that his birthday was just the day before and that he had a dream that God told him his name was now ‘Rahsaan.’ That’s pretty hard to fight with,” Dorn said, “the God backup.”
Originally the name, when it came to him had been ‘Rahsadn’ but Kirk figured that no one would get it right, so he dropped the “d” and added an additional “a.” “Each letter means something,” Kirk explained in an interview with Jazz & Pop. “I’m supposed to live the letters to a tee before I tell what every letter means.” The breakdown went something like this – Royal, Adventurous, Heroic, and ended with Noble.

...

Jazz Pour Tous, Belgium, 1963
Broadcast in Belgium on Dec. 27, 1964, Kirk’s performance on Jazz Pour Tous was filmed nearly a year earlier in late October/early November, 1963. Kirk kicks off the set with “Moon Song,” which he recorded two years earlier on We Free Kings, trading off between manzello and tenor. With his body rocking in rhythm, a continuous ribbon of sound pours from his tenor as he employs the ancient technique of circular—or as he preferred to call it, “spherical”—breathing. While Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks bulged like a bionic bullfrog as he spewed searing trumpet lines, watching Kirk sucking air through his flaring nostrils while simultaneously forcing torrential currents of sound through his horns conjures the image of a supernatural human locomotive. The Swiss-born pianist/composer/arranger George Gruntz makes his entrance looking bemused. His gentle touch on the ivories provides a stark contrast to Kirk’s take-no-prisoners approach. Meanwhile, Kirk listens hard to his band with his bottom lip protruding in deep concentration until once more grabbing his horns and wrestling the song to its end.

Kirk then approaches Rodgers and Hart’s lyrical waltz, “Lover,” as if he is playing a giant brass piano, employing the high notes of the manzello like the upper register of the keyboard, while the tenor covered the left hand. At times, Kirk seemed dissatisfied with the range of both instruments and only by combining the two could he express the full range of tumultuous emotions and ideas he constantly had brewing in his head. On his first visit to England in 1963, Roland tried to clarify his concept of playing multiple horns in an interview with Melody Maker: “I constantly think about music,” he said. “When I go to sleep, I actually dream about music and hear things, which I try to play during my waking hours. One night about five years ago, I dreamed I was playing three instruments at once. The sounds and feeling created coincided with what I had been seeking on one instrument.”

“Nobody ever got to the next step by asking, ‘What’s the right way to be a pioneer?’” Dorn once told me. “It doesn’t work that way. In terms of modern jazz, he is such a singular figure that when the world understands what it is he did, he’ll finally get the attention he deserved. A lot of people get their cookie after the fact, Charles Ives, Weegee, van Gogh.”

...

Kirk kicks off the set with Charlie Parker’s “Blues For Alice,” another song from We Free Kings which had been in his repertoire for years.

At a time when Dixieland was considered passé, Kirk defiantly reached for his clarinet to evoke the sound and soul of the Crescent City with “Blue Rol,” “a new composition” from his recently released album Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith recorded in April 1967. The record was a one-off, produced by Creed Taylor for Verve before Kirk signed an exclusive contract with Atlantic. Blowing black stick in tandem with tenor on a slow sultry blues reminiscent of Ma Rainey’s “See See Rider” was a prodigious feat when you stop to consider the difference in the embouchures required of the two horns. A few years later, his album The Inflated Tear would feature a cover of Ellington’s “Creole Love Call” with Kirk once again doubling on clarinet and tenor. While Kirk won consecutive Down Beat polls for best clarinet, he was always underrated and never appreciated for the instrument on which he prided himself most—the tenor sax. As competitive as jazz is, he was a genuine heavyweight on the instrument who held his own at sessions with everyone from Don Byas to Sonny Stitt, to Coltrane and Rollins. Whenever Kirk meant business, he reached for his tenor. The horn was always dependable, like handing the ball off to a star fullback, who plows his way down the field for a touchdown. After blowing a particularly fantastic solo, Kirk would often raise his horn above his head in triumph and shout, “That was mean! That was mean!”

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