We Free Kings (CD)

Blind jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk is often remembered for his incredible ability to play three horns simultaneously--which made him a virtual one-man brass section. A master of circular breathing, he was also able to hold a note almost indefinitely. But his music went beyond mere gimmickry, and his exuberance sprang from a deep understanding of numerous musical vocabularies, from New Orleans roots through bebop and free jazz to pop. He was the leader on dozens of albums from the 1950s up until his death from a stroke after a performance in 1977.

• Category:  Music  »  Jazz  »  Saxophone
• Format: CD   Learn more about the CD format using Tower WIKI.
• Release Date: October 25, 1990
• Label: Verve (USA)
• UPC: 042282645524
• WAPI (Tower ID): 106664869
• Average Customer Review: There are no customer reviews yet. Be the first to write a review!
• Tower.com Sales Rank: #24979 in Music (See Top 100 Music Bestsellers)
• #1726 in Jazz (See Top 100 Jazz Bestsellers)
• #82 in Saxophone (See Top 100 Saxophone Bestsellers)

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Only his third session as a leader, 1961's WE FREE KINGS finds multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk (he added the Rahsaan in 1969) transplanted to New York from his native Midwest and signed to Mercury Records, where he'd remain for the next seven years. With this classic album, Kirk shook off detractors who dismissed him as a novelty (for his revival of the vaudeville trick of playing up to three reeds at once) and established himself as a paragon of modern jazz.

Beginning with a typically idiosyncratic reworking of Coltrane's "Blues for Alice," Kirk only occasionally steps into the free jazz style implied by the album's title, notably on the first recorded version of his legendary multi-horn showcase "Three for the Festival." Recorded in two different no-nonsense trio settings, WE FREE KINGS showcases Kirk's astonishingly varied brilliance in a suitably stripped-down context. Different CD editions of this album contain various outtakes and alternate takes.

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