Rahsaan Roland Kirk – The Inflated Tear
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – The Creole Love Call
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – A Laugh For Rory
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – The Black And Crazy Blues
August 7th is a sacred day here at Melting Pot, since it was the day that our patron saint, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, came in this world. As was the case with last year’s choice, Volunteered Slavery, I was pleasantly surprised that I hadn’t posted this album despite it being one of the first albums from Rahsaan I tracked down, and one of my favorites.
The Inflated Tear in some ways marks the end of a certain period of Rahsaan’s career. Musically, it shares a lot with the work Rahsaan had been doing on Mercury/Limelight, and is in some ways very different from the funkier “Vibration Society,” albums that followed, beginning with Volunteered Slavery. But though things would get oh so funky soon after this album, it still shares commonalities with the earlier period, and a big part of that is New Orleans and Rahsaan’s appreciation of the original masters of what he called “Black Classical Music.”
That influence comes through strong and clear in the lead track, “The Black And Crazy Blues,” which is a classic New Orleans style dirge that might have been played on the way to someone’s funeral. Given the nature of the song, perhaps it’s no surprise that Rahsaan linked it to his preferred way of being sent off, though I am fairly certain this wish was not what ultimately happened.
Those “Black and Crazy Blues,” are followed on the original album by the whimsical “A Laugh For Rory,” a song dedicated (and featuring the voice of at the intro before the music starts) to Rahsaan’s son, who was four years old at that time. “Laugh” is kind of a classic flute tune from Rahsaan, fitting for his child and, with more than a few dear friend’s newborns running around every time I visit them, it’s hard not to visualize a young child’s curiosity of the world when hearing this song written for Rahsaan’s child. As he did with his “Black and Crazy Blues,” Rahsaan links present (circa 1968) and past with his version of Duke Ellington’s “Creole Love Call,” which I find all kinds of lovely.
But the most notable and most unforgettable song on this album is the title track, “The Inflated Tear.” The song, as Rahsaan describes in the notes above, relates to the incident that robbed him of his eyesight, while still a wee babe. I think that lore informs how the song moves from jarring moments of Rahsaan on sax, manzello & stritch, to the more serene moments of calm and beauty…perhaps, signifying the strange joys and pains of life. But, later in the notes to this record, Rahsaan draws attention to how the world treats him because of his blindness.
It’s telling that at one of those moments of disjuncture, Rahsaan can be heard yelling, Help them! Help them! Please!” Rahsaan seemed to always deal with folk who couldn’t understand just how beautiful his music was, and why it felt it necessary to play three horns, nose flute and all those makeshift instruments he would carry around him. It was never about attention or gimmicks to become popular, but always about this deep need to communicate what he heard, and how he heard sound, to others. As he described in the closing lines of the liner notes, “…someday this TEAR is going to burst and when it does, I hope the right people get caught up in whichever way it goes.”
Rahsaan’s music perhaps hasn’t found as big of an audience as it deserves, but it does find the right ears…Those who understand its beauty. Incidentally, the beauty of the cover of this record was the catalyst for a friendship that has lasted over 25 years at this point. Finding music like this is special, but finding others who also dig it and understand how special it is? That’s magic.
I am so thankful that I found this album so soon after my introduction to Rahsaan. Along with Bright Moments, The Case Of the 3 Sided Dream In Audio Color, & Volunteered Slavery, it express so much of what made Rahsaan’s music special, and why he remains my single favorite musician of all-time.
Bright Moments,
Michael