Saturday, November 7, 2009

Rahsaan Roland KIRK - Bright Moments 1973


Rahsaan Roland KIRK - Bright Moments 1973
Recorded live at Keystone Korner, San Francisco, California.1973

2LP set, live, and yes, THIS is the Live/Dead, or better yet, the Europe '72 of the Kirk canon -- totally indispensable, perfectly capturing the live Kirk experience in all its varied facets. Kirk does it all here, from engaging the audience in long talks/rants/poems/jokes to playing pre-recorded tapes of locomotives into the microphone. Music includes the occasional use of synth (usually anathema to Kirk, who "hates electricity," as he often put it. Actually, he really just hates the way electricity was added to jazz at the time [ahem, Miles]) on one of his funniest tracks, the transparently descriptive "Fly Town Nose Blues," which makes generous use of the nose flute/mouth flute combo, along with some weird synth sounds from Todd Barkan. Covers include still MORE Bacharach ("You'll Never Get To Heaven"), MORE Ellington ("Prelude to a Kiss"), Rogers & Hammerstein ("If I Loved You"), and Fats Waller ("Jitterbug Waltz") as well as a Kirk original in the style of the New Orleans '20s jazz tradition ("'dem Red Beans and Rice"). Some of the rants kind of bog this down for me, though most all of what he says is totally on point. One of his best rants here, one that he added to and revised for years afterwards, is from the title track, "Bright Moments." It was a structure Kirk would come back to again and again for audience banter. "Bright Moments! Bright moments like eatin' a pork chop in London, knowing that that would be the last one you'd have for a long time. Bright moments like sharing an ice cream sundae with your girl, and she grabs the last bite, and that makes you mad, so you gotta grab her and get it back!" (The Man Who Cried Fire also contained one that goes, "Bright Moments! Bright Moments like making love on a leaky waterbed in a Holiday Inn…") Generally considered the A-1 pinnacle of Kirk's career, though I'm not quite THAT into it yet...the live side of Volunteered Slavery still works better for me, personally, but it might just be that I have to grow into this one. It's happened before -- took me three years of constant trying to "get" Second Edition too! I'm more than willing to be converted.
**
Rahsaan Roland Kirk's live club gigs were usually engaging, freewheeling affairs, full of good humor and a fantastically wide range of music. The double album Bright Moments is a near-definitive document of the Kirk live experience, and his greatest album of the '70s. The extroverted Kirk was in his element in front of an audience, always chatting, explaining his concepts, and recounting bits of jazz history. Even if some of his long, jive-talking intros can sound a little dated today, it's clear in the outcome of the music that Kirk fed voraciously off the energy of the room. Most of the tracks are long (seven minutes or more), demonstrating Kirk's wealth of soloing ideas in a variety of styles (and, naturally, on a variety of instruments). "Pedal Up" is a jaw-dropping demonstration of Kirk's never-duplicated three-horns-at-once technique, including plenty of unaccompanied passages that simply sound impossible. There's more quintessential Kirk weirdness on "Fly Town Nose Blues," which heavily features an instrument called the nose flute, and the title track has a healthy dose of Kirk singing through his (traditional) flute. His repertoire is typically eclectic: Ellington's "Prelude to a Kiss"; a groovy Bacharach pop tune in "You'll Never Get to Heaven"; a lovely version of Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz"; and a stomping, exultant New Orleans-style original, "Dem Red Beans and Rice." Perhaps the best, however, is an impassioned rendition of the ballad standard "If I Loved You," where Kirk's viscerally raw, honking tone hints in a roundabout way at the avant-garde without ever losing its melodic foundation. Bright Moments empties all the major items out of Kirk's bag of tricks, providing a neat microcosm of his talents and displaying a consummate and knowledgeable showman. In short, it's nothing less than a tour de force.
By Steve Huey, All Music Guide.
**
Henry Pearson- Bass
Robert Shy- Drums
Rahsaan Roland Kirk- Flute, Saxophone [Tenor], Flute [Nose]
Joe Habao- Percussion
Ron Burton- Piano
Todd Barkan- Synthesizer
**
A1. Introduction 2:06
A2. Pedal Up 11:52
A3. You'll Never Get To Heaven 9:48

B1. Clackety Clack 2:30
B2. Prelude To A Kiss 5:05
B3. Talk (Electric Nose) 2:33
B4. Fly Town Nose Blues 8:52

C1. Talk (Bright Moments) 3:30
C2. Bright Moments Song 10:02
C3. Dem Red Beans And Rice 7:05

D1. If I Loved You 8:50
D2. Talk (Fats Waller) 1:30
D3. Jitterbug Waltz 7:00
D4. Second Line Jump 1:30
**
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