domingo, 18 de octubre de 2009

Rahsaan Roland KIRK - Here Comes the Whistleman 1967


Rahsaan Roland KIRK - Here Comes the Whistleman 1967
Label: Water
Recorded live at Atlantic Studios,
New York on March 14, 1965
Originally released on Atlantic.

Jazz

Roland Kirk's Debut Album For Atlantic Records For The First Time On CD In The U.S.

Multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk was one of the great originals of jazz, unparalleled to this day. In 1965 however, ten years into his career, Kirk was without a recording contract. He?d cut a dozen albums between Mercury and Limelight Records, but had grown increasingly unhappy with the lack of promotion and support he´d been receiving and refused to re-sign. A blind black musician who played three saxophones simultaneously, Kirk was regularly regarded as a novelty act, written off time and time again by the greater majority of the jazz community. Though he desperately sought critical and mainstream acceptance, Kirk refused to compromise his style. One of his biggest supporters in those years was Joel Dorn, a 22-year old disc jockey on Philadelphia?s flagship jazz station WHAT-FM, who had been moonlighting as a producer for Atlantic Records, recording albums by Sonny Stitt, Duke Pearson, Rufus Harley and Hubert Laws. Using whatever influence he could muster at the time, Dorn persuaded Rahsaan to let him produce his next record, while convincing Nesuhi Ertegun, Atlantic Records co-founder, to sign Rahsaan for a one-off deal. The result was Here Comes The Whistleman, the first of 12 records Rahsaan would make for Atlantic Records and a partnership with Dorn that would last until his untimely death in 1977.

From the beginning, Roland Kirk and Joel Dorn refused to play it straight, despite the fact that they were admittedly trying to make a hit jazz record. They agreed upon the idea of recording the album in front of a ?live? studio audience. Dorn had preeminent New York City disc jockeys Alan Grant of WABC-FM and Del Shields of WLIB-FM invite listeners to the studio for the taping on March 14, 1965. ?Our goal was to get on the radio, but even in attempting to make a commercial jazz record, it went against the grain,? remembers Dorn. ?Looking back, it?s unconventional structure and looseness were indicators of the records we?d make in the future.? A conversation included on the album tips off listeners that Dorn arrived late to the session after being stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike. Atlantic staff producer Arif Mardin would start the session, which included some of the most in-demand sidemen of the day, Jaki Byard and Lonnie Smith on piano, Major Holley on bass and Charles Crosby on drums. Atlantic Records would not release the album until 1967.

This month, Here Comes The Whistleman is reissued on CD for the first time in the U.S. by Label M. Beginning with the infectious swinger, Roots, Kirk draws deeply from the vocabulary of Illinois Jacquet, Wardell Gray and Lester Young, all of whose records he was known to study like scripture. Potentially disregarded for its accessibility at the time, but a wonderfully funky highlight 35 years later is the self-penned ?Making Love After Hours. Kirks personality spills over the sides, cheering his nose on, before bringing back the horn section, which includes himself on tenor, manzello and stritch for the tag. Major Holley is featured on ?Yesterdays, applying Slam Stewart´s bowing technique to the beautiful standard. Declared Kirk´s most swinging and appealing album so far, by England´s Jazz Journal in 1968, Here Comes The Whistleman concludes with the fiery hard bop of Step Right Up. Unknowingly autobiographical, Kirk was perhaps preparing himself for what lay ahead, as he would become an increasingly visionary and pioneering force in the years to come.
All About Jazz Publicity.
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Here Comes The Whistleman showcases Rahsaan Roland Kirk in 1967 with a fine band, live in front of a host of invited guests at Atlantic Studios in New York. His band for the occasion is stellar: Jacki Byard or Lonnie Smith on piano, Major Holley on bass, Lonnie Smith on piano, and Charles Crosby on drums. This is the hard, jump blues and deep R&B Roland Kirk band, and from the git, on "Roots," they show why. Kirk comes screaming out of the gate following a double time I-IV-V progression, with Holley punching the accents along the bottom and Byard shoving the hard tight chords up against Kirk's three-horn lead. The extended harmony Kirk plays — though the melody line is a bar walking honk — is extreme, full of piss and vinegar. On the title track, along with the artist's requisite, and genuinely good, humor, Kirk breaks out the whistles on top of the horn for a blues stomp with Smith taking over the piano chores. Smith plays a two chord vamp, changing the accent before he beings to break it open into a blues with skittering fills and turnarounds while Kirk blows circularly for 12 and 14 bars at a time. Byard returns for a tender and stirring duet rendition of "I Wished on the Moon," with his own glorious rich lyricism. And here is where Kirk displays the true measure of his ability as a saxophonist. Turning the ballad inside out, every which way without overstating the notes. Here, Ben Webster meets Coleman Hawkins in pure lyric ecstasy. The set officially ends with the wailing flute and sax jam "Aluminum Baby," (both courtesy of the irrepressible Kirk) and the bizarre ride of "Step Right Up" where Kirk sings scat in a dialect that sounds like Pop-eye. Now that's where the LP version ended, but the Label M CD reissue tags on, without credits anywhere two absolutely essential scorchers with what seems to be Byard on piano and an over-the-top bass blowout from Holley. Kirk plays saxophones on both, being his own horn section. This makes an already satisfying date an essential one. Given these additions, this might arguably be the place to start for an interested but underexposed listener who wants to experience how dazzlingly original Kirk was
By Thom Jurek.  AMG.
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Rahsaan Roland Kirk- (Flute, stritch, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone);
Jaki Byard, Lonnie Smith- (Piano);
Major Holley- (Double bass);
Charles Crosby- (Drums).
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01. Roots
02. Here Comes the Whistleman 
03. I Wished on the Moon
04. Making Love After Hours 
05. Yesterdays
06. Aluminum Baby
07. Step Right Up
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