Rahsaan Roland Kirk – We Free Kings
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – You Did It, You Did It
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – The Haunted Melody
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Three For The Festival
Essentially since the beginning of Melting Pot, nary an August 7th goes by without me paying tribute to our patron saint and my favorite musician, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, here on his birthday. As will be a theme with more than a few posts in the coming months, it came as a bit of a shock that I hadn’t posted this year’s selection before, as it truly is one of my favorite albums of Rahsaan’s early period. Coming out of sessions that pre-date his work on Charles Mingus’ Oh Yeah by a few months, and finding him in top form along with two separate groups of musicians, Hank Jones, Wendell Marshall & Charlie Persip on a slim majority of tracks and then Richard Wyands & Art Davis joining Persip for the remaining four.
While it would be easy to share any track from this album, I still hold to my own rules when it comes to sharing albums, and have chosen only four to post today. The titular “We Free Kings” is actually Kirk’s reworking of the classic Christmas tune, “We Three Kings,” into his own creation, rightly credited as his own composition, as the changes make it almost unrecognizable. “You Did It, You Did It,” might (I’d have to check Rahsaan’s discography to be 100% sure) be the first time that Rahsaan showcased his signature way of singing and playing flute simultaneously. As a reminder of how sweet Rahsaan could play, there’s the ethereal “The Haunted Melody,” but this album also features a song that would become one of the stables of Rahsaan’s live performances, “Three For The Festival,” the best (or at least my favorite) version of which ends up on the The Case Of The Three Sided Dream as “Freaks For The Festival.”
Someone not familiar with Rahsaan’s music might worry that at some point I’d run out of albums to share or sterling things to say about the man, but given the volume of Rahsaan’s discography, as a leader and sidemen, I can guarantee we’ll be sharing a different recording from him each year on his day until this blog is done…which should be many many moons from now. Bright Moments!!!