Weekend Song – Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Genius is a word that gets banded around a lot and would be far less banded if more people knew about Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

Born Ronald Kirk in Columbus Ohio in 1936 and blinded soon after, he had a dream about transposing the letters of his first name, so he changed it to Roland. Later he dreamed about adding Rahsaan as a first name and he did that too.

He played saxophone and clarinet from the age of twelve in the school band and became was a multi-instrumentalist. By this I mean that at the age of sixteen, after dreaming he was playing three instruments at once, the next day he went to a music store and tried out all the reed instruments and found a way of playing several at once.

This might seem like a gimmick, were it not for the fact that he was a virtuoso, with an astute sense of harmony, an immense improvisational vocabulary, deadly timing and the ability to play in different styles across a range of instruments and genres.

If he had just played flute, he would have been one of the greats. He could play and harmonise by singing at the same time – taking this then-unknown technique to the next level. He would switch instruments for solos throughout the song and play differently on each of them.

He often played two saxophones at once,as he does on this song. Actually, more likely than not, one was a hybrid saxophone, like a stritch or a manzello. The former was like a straight alto, the latter a modified soprano, but with an upturned bell and tuned to C instead of B flat. He modified these himself, and like I said he would play them both at the same time. Sometime while playing the flute. Through his nose.

Around his neck he had whistles and sirens. He stored the flute in the bell of his tenor sax. He kept a harmonica in his pocket, because you never know. All this was around his neck, and bear in mind one sax weighs about 7 pounds, and a lot of that is on your right thumb when you’re playing two handed. He had all that other stuff as well, but it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling.

He also played English horn and not a bad trumpet. He was a major developer of circular breathing, where you blow out while breathing in through your nose.

If I could be crass enough to mention myslef in the same breath, I once bet someone £5 I could hold a note on the sax for two minutes and held it for fifteen.

Roland Kirk was politically active and hilarious on stage and one of life’s great spirits.

In 1975 he suffered a stroke which left him paralysed on one side of his body. Although this should have ended his career, he set about working things out while still in hospital. In his own words, he said “This is a mechnical problem, it ought to have a mechanical solution.” He redesigned the instruments so he could play, and within a year he was back at Ronnie Scott’s, although just on two saxophones.

Saxophonist John Stubblefield said of Kirk: “He could hear around corners.” Jimi Hendrix idolized his improvisational style and the two were due to record together.

Kirk died in 1977, leaving his wife Dorthaan who said: “His head should’ve just blown off his body with all the stuff he held up there.”

Watch the video – WATCH THE VIDEO -of him playing Three For The Festival, which appears on the 1961 We Free Kings album from which this weekend’s Weekend Song song is also taken.

Listen: A Sack Full Of Soul