Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk
9.5 x 4.5 inches, oil on wood, 2018

The third painting of Rahsaan Roland Kirk for the Top 100 2017/18 represents his 1968 classic The Inflated Tear. The tune was a revelation for May Cobb, who is currently finishing a book about "the late, great, multi-instrumentalist." She heard The Inflated tear first in a college class on jazz history. May Cobb and I have been occasionally writing to each other about Kirk. Here's she in her own words (as published in The Rumpus): "The Inflated Tear sounded like the entire spectrum of the history of African-American music rolled into one four-minute song: old slavery spirituals, work songs, field hollers, soul, modern jazz, and early blues. It was like a Duke Ellington reed section, yet more emotional, more intimate, with a sound that ached of centuries. It was like listening to the inside of someone’s heart."