Rabble Without A Cause
Wednesday September 2nd, 2015 with Bernard Stepien
Subject: Multi-Concurrent-Saxophonist Roland Kirk in Copenhagen, 1963

Roland kirk is considered as a Jazz genius. The reasons for this judgement are numerous. His most known and obvious achievement was to be able to play several saxophones at once, up to five at a time. But few ventured into analysing the deeper roots of his success even though, the multi-concurrent-saxophones was a good lead to start. Kirk was also some sort of Big Band all by himself. He rarely played a tune on a single instrument whether concurrently or sequentially. He mastered the art of contrast by changing instruments of different registers sometimes in the middle of a phrase not alone choruses. Finally, in those ‘60s where he thrived that were dominated by the emergence of pop music, Kirk jumped furiously on the pop music band wagon by integrating just enough pop music fragments into his own Hard Bop driven music to hook the maximum number of people. Finally, Kirk was also a master at creating a sense of musical panic that kept everyone on the move. Tonight, we will survey a relatively rare live recording in 1963 in Copenhagen. This was a couple years after Kirk joined the Charles Mingus band along with Eric Dolphy, yet another unorthodox player.