Search - Rahsaan Roland Kirk :: Does Your House Have Lions: The Rahsaan Roland Kirk Anthology

"Say A Little Prayer" meets "A Love Supreme"

m_noland | Washington, DC United States | 12/07/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As Stanley Crouch observes in his liner notes to this excellent two-disk set, Rahsaan Roland Kirk occupied an uncomfortable place in the saxophone pantheon clearly a notch below Coltrane and Rollins but clearly above professional journeyman. What set him apart (other than his absence of sight and his ability to play multiple reed instruments simultaneously) was his extraordinary capacity for synthesizing diverse musical styles, as amply documented in this excellent career overview.Kirk ranged from the straight-ahead bop of "Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am" from a 1961 session with Mingus, to the eerie atmospherics of "The Inflated Tear" and "Seasons," to R&B "Volunteered Slavery" and "The Old Rugged Cross" (the word play of the spoken introduction to the latter is worth the price of admission alone - I would have loved to hear what Rahsaan would have made of rap) to pop "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Say A Little Prayer" (in which he quotes the "Acknowledgement" movement from "A Love Supreme") to observations on racial and sexual relations. A cranky sort of humane-ness comes through throughout. If Coltrane was a seeker and Rollins a virtuoso, Rahsaan Roland Kirk was your eccentric neighbor sitting on his porch dealing out street wisdom. A worthy introduction to the career of a sadly missed musician."

It is a great Best-Of... but being a Best-Of is the problem

macfawlty | potomac, MD USA | 01/03/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great best-of for rahsaan, to be sure, and if you don't have alot of his music already, I would recommend it highly, but being a best-of means that the songs are taken out of the context of the albums they were recorded for, and it always leaves me with a feeling like... "hey, this is great..., but what about the music I am missing?". With Rahsaan, you don't want to be missing anything. My preference for Rahsaan is actually for box sets that are entire albums like Aces Back to Back, or Dog Years in the Fourth Ring, etc. Don't avoid buying this box if you just want a little, but get hip to rahsaan and accept the fact that you can't eat just one."

The New York City Public Critique Of Instrumental Reason

Jeffrey Rubard | Beaverton, OR US | 01/01/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There isn't too much to say about this record, except what it less-than-obviously is not (namely, a message to future generations of all ages). As Joel Dorn's for-once-respectful liner notes make clear, Kirk was a public figure in an age of public figures and perhaps one of the last of them: his famed three-horn method (a sight to see) derives from vaudeville, rather than the military brass bands of Albert Ayler's "dreams". And the absolute modernism of the "chitlin circuit" compared to various modalities of bop is something to consider, as is the very sad story about Kirk and the fusion group Stuff (who knew how to play "King Heroin", but not "A Night In Tunisia") and the extremely instructive stories about Kirk's sense of humor in the face of incredible (insuperable) obstacles. A figure richly deserving a sentimental and melancholy book, music that demands a listenership."