The Kirk travelling circus on location in San Francisco. Like most circuses it has excitement, spectacle, atmosphere, flamboyance. But then there are the ‘turns’ where very little happens and you are waiting for the next business. The leader’s introduction of the band and himself illustrates his developing sense of showmanship. Pedal Up recalls Coltrane of 1960, once the inevitable double horn routine has been left behind. Burton sounds like McCoy Tyner’s shadow. Kirk goes over the top after the piano solo, doing a wild two-horn medley which has little to do with Pedal Up.
Bacharach’s You’ll Never Get To Heaven finds Kirk switching horns in chameleon fashion. Sometimes one can’t help feeling that he employs too many instruments and only succeeds in distracting the listener by these tactics. The man’s impatience and obsession with special effects is his undoing, which is a shame – for Rahsaan when he wants to can really play. His sheer exuberance cries out for a restraining hand.
The monologues – ‘bring on the clowns’ – are embarrassing and do not warrant repetition (shades of Babs at his worst). Is the bandstand the place for a diatribe against the Beatles, Nixon etc.? That’s the substance of Clickety Clack – ghetto philosophy. Right after it Kirk delivers a beautiful Prelude To A Kiss, a feelingful tenor solo. Why the hell won’t he make a straight tenor album? This is the horn he plays so much better than his other ironmongery.
Then comes a nose interlude – amusing chat but one hearing is enough. Horseplay to the fore again on Fly Town Nose Blues – a sort of Slam Stewart type duet between the Kirk nasal flute and his throat grunts backed up by a plodding rock beat that creeps along interminably. It’s all about five minutes too long.
Kirk gets the customers joining in on his Bright Moments spiel. Then follows up with a bossa for flute and vocal interludes. Habao’s percussion is delicate and enhancing. A thoroughly successful track.
Dem Red Beans And Rice is a Kirk tribute to New Orleans and it is a reasonably authentic facsimile in the early jazz style and not at all tongue in cheek. Burton plays some fine stride piano here. The audience clap their hands off.
Full of surprises, Rahsaan turns If I Loved You into a shouting, stamping tenor outing, twisting the tail of this piece of Rodgers and Hammerstein sentimentality. A bright moment indeed! The arrangement of Waller’s Jitterbug Waltz is interesting and Kirk is in full control here. This is a tune that appeals to modern musicians – for instance, Miles Davis, Pepper Adams and Joe Albany, who have a recorded it profitably. The brief Second Line Jump closes things out on a lifting note.
Bright moments? Yes, some, but rather thinly spread over two albums. One LP could have contained them by elimination of the dross.
Discography
Introduction; Pedal Up; You’ll Never Get To Heaven (23¾ mins) – Clickety Clack; Prelude To A Kiss; Talk (Electric Nose); Fly Town Nose Blues (19 min) – Talk (Bright Moments); Bright Moments Song; Dem Red Beans And Rice (20½ min) – If I Loved You; Talk; Jitterbug Waltz; Second Line Jump (19 min)
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (flt/ten/manzello/ stritch/nose-flt/misc. instruments); Ron Burton (pno); Henry Pearson (bs); Robert Shy (dm); Joe Habao (perc); Todd Barkan (synthesizer/tamb). Keystone Korner, San Francisco, June 1973.
(Atlantic SD 907 £3.99)
