Sunday, November 4, 2012

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…


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

Saturday, November 3, 2012

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…

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.
 
Locations of visitors to this page