KIRK

Rahsaan Roland Kirk
24" x 12"
oil on luan, 2012

Downbeat magazine "Poll Winners' Show" 1975, Rahsaan Roland Kirk is introduced by Quincy Jones as having won the award in the category of multi-instrumentalist and miscellaneous instruments. In the clarinet category he won for the 2nd consecutive year, the stritch and manzello he won for 14 consecutive years (these were instrument he devised himself), he won the flute too. As soon as Quincy Jones is done with the lauds, Kirk tears into a mesmerizing version of Pedal Up. Kirk plays multiple horns, McCoy Tyner is on piano, Stanley Clarke on bass, and Lenny White is the drummer on this track that reaches high into the Top 100 for the 3rd consecutive year. It doesn't get old this one. I have a version on the 2LP-set Bright Moments but I prefer the Downbeat version. It's great to see him perform even just on video as I never had the chance to see him perform live in concert. Ronald Theodore Kirk was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1935, he died in 1977.