On the Topic of Jazz

Last semester, JT and I turned this video into something of an Amherst tradition. Active from the 1950s until his death in 1977, Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a blind master of multiple instruments. His ability to play more than one instrument simultaneously was often dismissed as showmanship, but Kirk insisted that he was trying to emulate sounds in his mind. In the video, he plays two saxophones at once; in other performances he often played three. Although his main instrument was the tenor saxophone, he also mastered the straight alto sax, or stritch, and the curved soprano sax, or manzello. As a young player, he discovered as discarded one of each of these instruments and realized that they fit well into his mouth beside the tenor sax. Kirk avidly explored a variety of other instruments, including clarinet, trumpet, harmonica, english horn, nose flute, recorder, gong, conch shell, whistle, siren, alarm clock, graden hose, and flute, which one hears him play in Quincy Jones's "Soul Bossa Nova," the Austin Powers themesong. This video of "Volunteered Slavery" captures Kirk's unparalled ability to circular breathe, the method of storing a reserve of air in the cheeks to blow out while inhaling so as not to interrupt the stream of music. This video, although over 10 minutes long, gets progressively more exciting. Enjoy!