More good news for vinyl hounds:
Roland Kirk: The Limelight/Verve Albums (4 LPs)(Mosaic #3006)
http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=3006
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In 1964, Mercury announced Limelight, a new subsidiary with incredibly elaborate packaging. Roland moved to the new label and recorded what could be called his first concept record. He left all the saxophones at home and recorded an entire album on a variety of flutes. „I Talk With The Spirits“ added vibist Bobby Moses to his quartet with Miss C. J. Albert’s wordless vocal on two tunes. The material was all geared to the flute but ranged from the lyrical to the funky. Roland’s kick-off original, the irresistible „Serenade To A Cuckoo“ became a radio hit. The whole album is a coherent and beautiful statement.
To see Kirk live was like having a safe seat at the core of a typhoon and witnessing a force of nature facilely draw upon the entire history of jazz with dazzling energy, humor and imagination. That was glimpsed on 1963’s „Kirk In Copenhagen,“ but the intensity that was Kirk and his music was not properly captured until an all-star studio album „Rip, Rig And Panic,“ made at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio. The rhythm section of Jaki Byard, Richard Davis and Elvin Jones was a dream team for Roland. These were men who could follow him anywhere in a heartbeat and who meshed musically on the highest plane. They were, quite simply, on his level. This studio album packed all the power and energy of Roland Kirk live, moving effortless from New Orleans to swing to bop to free form to musique concrete.
Kirk’s final Limelight album was no less ambitious though it was a clear attempt to cross over into more popular radio formats. Kirk and arranger Garnett Brown add brass and percussion to the mix for „Slightly Latin“ which also includes the Coleridge Perkinson choir on three tracks. Two pop tunes are covered, a smokin‘ „Walk On By“ and the Beatles‘ „And I Love Her.“ The rest is densely textured originals on which Roland plays a fair amount of baritone sax with the grace and power he brings to any reed instrument.
Before committing to an exclusive contract with Atlantic Records in 1967, he made one album for Creed Taylor at Verve. This would be his third and final album at the Van Gelder studio. „Now Please Don’t Cry, Beautiful Edith“ is a celebrated quartet affair with Lonnie Liston Smith on piano, Ronnie Boykins on bass and the indefatigable Grady Tate on drums. The program is mostly originals, but with a wide variety of grooves and melodic material. Fittingly, it kicks off with a beautiful Ellingtonian original blues „Blue Rol“ which is a rare feature for Roland on clarinet.
Roland’s collaborations with producer Joel Dorn on Atlantic would soon take a more conceptual shape and a variety of settings and themes. These four mid-sixties gems capture Roland Kirk at the height of his powers with his identity fully formed in four wonderful contexts.
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Die vier enthaltenen Alben sind:
I TALK WITH THE SPIRITS (Limelight LS 86008)
RIP, RIG AND PANIC (Limelight LS 86027)
SLIGHTLY LATIN (Limelight LS 86033)
NOW PLEASE DON’T CRY, BEAUTIFUL EDITH (Verve V6-8709)
Schön, dass damit auch das Verve-Album mal so richtig zu Ehren gelangt!
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #164: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv, 10.6., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba