Music of the World for the Caverns of Your Mind

The first time I heard Rahsaan Roland Kirk was in the winter of 1972. A friend was playing his newly-released record titled Blacknuss. It was a revelation. As I listened, I realized that the world was on that record, if not all of it then certainly much of it. The beautiful and the ugly; the transcendent and the mundane. His band’s take on songs then current renewed them in ways I had never conceived of before my introduction to Kirk. The album was mostly a collection of tunes then popular on the record charts interpreted by Kirk and his ensemble. Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On/Mercy, Mercy Me (the Ecology” are the two I am hearing in my head as I write this piece. Kirk’s versions ran two to four minutes, like the songs themselves, but the sound created was impossible to measure. Aural depth barely describes what I was hearing.

However, it was Kirk’s summer 1973 release that made me a devotee, if you will. Titled Prepare Thyself to Deal With a Miracle, this was a composition that defied conventional understanding. Its intention was like that of a meditation, a prayer, not necessarily to some god in the sky but to a truth humanity would be wise to discover and learn before the time for learning had passed. A little over forty-three minutes in length, the composition, which is divided into four sections: 1) Salvation & Reminiscing; Seasons: One Mind Winter/Summer/Ninth Ghost; 2) Celestial Blues; 3) Saxophone Concerto: 4) Saxophone Miracle/One Breath Beyond/Dance of Revolution, flows across the mindscape, combining rhythms and drones, beats and chants, songs of various saxophones weaving in and out of piano chords and runs that seem designed to open the listener’s ears and heal their mind. I recently pulled the record out of my collection and, after cleaning the dust from it, put it on the turntable. It didn’t take me to the same place as it did in the 1970s, but it took me to a place I was glad to visit. The interplay between the saxophone and the singer that opens the first tune and then gently crashes into a conversation between strings, drums, voices, an oboe and piano is unlike anything I can remember hearing. More instruments join in, including what is called a nose flute. Check it out.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was born in the Flytown section of Columbus, Ohio in 1935. Blinded during a medical procedure when he was two years old, Kirk ended up at the Ohio State School for the Blind when he reached adolescence and by the time he was fifteen years old he was playing clubs and bars with Boyd Moore’s rhythm and blues band. A unique part of his playing was his ability to play two saxophones at once. This was possible in part because of Kirk’s method of circular breathing. As he continued to play, he picked up other instruments, adding them to his performance repertoire. He was soon leading his own bands, touring the United States and Europe and recording for numerous labels and with a number of different musicians. He was known for his outspokenness on racial and political issues, especially as regards white supremacy in the United States, even opening some of his shows with commentary regarding the news of the day.

Kirk died in 1977, suffering his second stroke the morning after performing a show at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. He was only forty-three. His legacy has only grown since. Ian Anderson credits Kirk with his decision to take up the flute and create his own unique rock music with the band Jethro Tull. Guitarist Derek Trucks recorded Kirk’s tune “Volunteered Slavery” at least three times and Jimi Hendrix was quoted as saying he idolized Kirk. British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who played with the jazz-rock fusion outfit called Colosseum (and many other groups), credited his approach—which included playing two saxophones at once—to Kirk. Other admirers include the Icelandic artist Bjork, the hard rock band Clutch and bluegrass/Americana musician Bela Fleck. Besides the omnipresent blues and jazz, Kirk’s influences included composers like Hindemith, Saint-Saens, and Villa-Lobos. His musical versatility is obvious not only in his work, but in the fact that he played two instruments at once, thereby creating chords on his saxophones and when he played flute and nose flute simultaneously.

In November 2025, Resonance Records released two live performances by Rahsaan Roland Kirk produced by a production team led by Zev Feldman, whose series of releases have garnered numerous Grammy nominations and awards. Like Feldman’s previous releases on Resonance and other labels, the discs are live performances, remastered, designed and packaged quite attractively. Titled Vibrations in the Village: Live at the Village Gate and Seek & Listen: Live at the Penthouse, the performances were recorded in 1963 and 1967, respectively. Besides Kirk himself, the personnel at the Village Gate for these shows were Horace Parlan, Melvin Rhyne and Jane Getz on piano, Henry Grimes on bass and Sonny Brown on drums. The tunes include Charles Mingus’ “Ecclusiastes,” five compositions by Kirk, and a standard or two. The personnel on the Penthouse performance are Rahsaan Roland Kirk on tenor saxophone, flute, stritch, manzello, flexatone, siren and whistle, Rahn Burton on piano, Steve Novosel on bass and Jimmy Hopps on the drums. These shows included several standards, including the Burt Bacharach and Hal David song “Alfie” and Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe.” A medley displaying Kirk’s musical knowledge and playfulness begins with a song called “Going Home” by Antonín Dvořák, goes into “Sentimental Journey” and ends with the Rodgers and Hart tunes “In Monument” / “Lover.” These shows took place before Kirk’s records representing his Black consciousness album titles that began in 1969 with the release of Volunteered Slavery and ended with 1973’s Blacknuss. Burton is the one player from these discs that was with Kirk in later recordings. I never had the good fortune to see Rahsaan Roland Kirk perform live but have watched a few complete shows on YouTube. These two releases bring the man, his band and sound, and his spirit into the caverns of your mind.

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