News & Updates — Rahsaan Roland Kirk

John Cage was one of the first early experimentalists I discovered. As a teenager I had already made my way through punk & industrial and had discovered Japanese noise and 60's black free-jazz. Coming across folks like Cage, Xenakis, Stockhausen and Harry Partch pushed me into brand new ways of appreciating music and sound. Cage's chance operations strategy appealed to my improv side, accompanying my "zen side". His prepared piano stuff appealed to the noise freak in me and his overall unique way of approaching the world was inspirational to me and my friends. The icing on the cake came...

Happy birthday to Al Hibbler, the uniquely gifted and underrated vocalist and civil rights activist who's career was disturbed by a near-blacklist recording ban due to his arrests in the movement. Born in Mississippi, he joined a choir at a school for the blind in Little Rock at age 12. He developed his baritone voice and started singing blues in the '30s. In the early '40s he sang in territory bands in the South and Midwest and also with Jay McShann (the same band with young Charlie Parker) where he made his first recorded appearance. In '43 he joined the...

One of my heroes, Rahsaan Roland Kirk brought a playful humor and inspired work ethic to some serious blues & bop chops. A man who could play THREE saxophones at the same time with a nose flute and bells around his ankles, but could really play a solo with the best. It is no secret that he was one of Jimi Hendrix's all time favorites: in fact as Jimi was blowing up big, he was found playing in Kirk's group one never-recorded weekend at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. (Hendrix said that Kirk told him to turn his volume UP). From...

Massachusetts native Jaki Byard brought a wide range of styles and a dose of good fun into his piano playing. Also a saxophonist (often at the same time as piano!), he worked with Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Art Blakey, Roland Kirk, Sam Rivers, Charlie Mariano, Quincy Jones (on the groovy Smackwater Jack), Booker Ervin, Elvin Jones and others, including a duet record with Earl Hines. He even filled in for Duke Ellington at times when the leader was ill! He had been an educator in colleges since the late '60s and continued to record and tour around the world. Disturbingly,...