Roland Kirk

I have a book that’s been sitting on my shelf for about 40 years. It’s called Woodstock 69 and it’s subtitled Summer Pop Festivals and it’s subsubtitled A Photo Review. It’s by Joseph J. Sia. I don’t remember where I got it but I know for sure it was cheap, maybe second hand.
It’s not just Woodstock; it’s also The Newport Jazz Festival, The Newport Folk Festival, and the Atlanta Pop Festival. The pictures are all black and white.

The first picture is a wild and crazy portrait of Robert Plant. He’s followed by Jeff Beck, David Clayton-Thomas and some audience people. Then Roland Kirk. He’s blowing a sax, wearing what appears to be a very loud shirt, wearing sun glasses. The background is dark.

For years everything I knew about Roland Kirk was that picture. That’s all he was to me, some cool jazz dude with a picture in a book I owned.

Then one fateful day I wandered into Sam The Record Man and picked up a copy of Jazz Masters 27 by Roland Kirk, and now the man had a sound. That’s how life goes…

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Roland Kirk:

• Three For The Festival
• Blue Rol
• Reeds And Deeds
• Hip Chops
• From Becket, Byas And Fats
• Berkshire Blues
• You Did It You Did It
• A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square 
• March On, Swan Lake 
• The Haunted Melody
• Meeting On Termini’s Corner
• Rolando
• Black Diamond

The Flares

This group recorded a ridiculous number of singles for a ridiculous number of labels under a ridiculous number of names, with ridiculously varied personnel. They were actually The Flairs before they were The Flares. Someone should do a dissertation…

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The Flares:

• Foot Stompin’ Part 1 – A great dance song. No pretensions. No silly animal gimmicks. No imitation movements. Just get it out there and stomp. From the fall of 1961. Their only hit.