Rahsaan Roland Kirk: The jazz maverick who could play three saxophones at once
While jazz is perhaps one of the most divisive genres to have ever been conceived, both sides of the debate have a reasonable argument to offer as to its virtues and shortcomings. To a lot of people, jazz is a pure form of artistic expression that allows you complete creative freedom that is unmatched by other genres, and this is true. On the flipside, others see it as being musical showboating, and while the virtuosos of the genre would probably prefer to be regarded differently, this is also quite an accurate statement.
There have been plenty of eccentric characters throughout the history of jazz, from tyrannical bandleaders like Charles Mingus and Miles Davis who used to take an authoritarian approach to keeping their band in check, and there have been others whose style of playing their instrument of choice is completely unorthodox and completely throws the rulebook out of the window. If you’re in search of someone who fits the latter category, then there are few quite as eccentric as Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
A god on the saxophone, Kirk was known for his wild playing style that, despite being blind, he managed to perfect and flout to audiences around the world during his career. Where most people would draw the line at playing one saxophone and employing techniques such as circular breathing or demonstrating a completely free and untamed playing style to wow spectators, Kirk saw fit to take his party trick one step further.
One saxophone was not enough for Kirk, and while he was pretty good at playing two simultaneously, his truly madcap move was to play three saxophones at once. Using a standard tenor saxophone, a manzello sax, which is similar to a soprano, and a straight alto stritch saxophone, he would stun audiences with this trick, having all three reeds in his mouth at once and moving his hands frantically along the valves to get different notes. With this, his saxophones would always be in harmony with one another, and he was capable of playing layered melodies without the need to employ another saxophonist in his band – a resourceful approach, some might say.
How did he come to realise that he could play three varieties of his instrument at once? Well, the idea came to him in a dream, allegedly, and from this moment on, he sought to pursue and practice this daring feat, turning it into his major showpiece. It’s also worth noting that Kirk was a frequent follower of his dreams; his adopted name also came to him in a dream, since he was born Ronald Theodore Kirk.
It wasn’t just his ability to play three saxophones at once that used to amaze onlookers, and his shows would often see him flex the ability to play other instruments such as the flute and various whistles, and he even made a habit of making music from other objects, such as the common garden hosepipe. Not only that, but his sense of humour was just as wild as his stage theatrics, which, given his proclivity for other antics, isn’t hard to believe.
His motivation to do this throughout his career was simple, according to biographer and filmmaker Adam Kahan, who directed the documentary The Case of the Three Sided Dream about Kirk’s life. “He could have just been a tenor virtuoso and stopped there,” Kahan claimed. “He didn’t want to. He would want to blow people’s minds sonically, so he would play two saxophones, and he would play three saxophones, and when he didn’t get what he felt was the proper recognition for what he was doing, it would make him crazier, and he would do more stuff. He would get a gong onstage. He would smash a chair. The more people dismissed him as a gimmick, the more it made him strengthen his resolve to do more crazy shit.”
Call Kirk’s insane approach a gimmick or showboating all you want; there have arguably been few musicians as original in jazz or beyond as Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and his brief but stacked discography is there to prove it. For a taste of his unbridled madness, you only need to listen to records like The Inflated Tear and Rip, Rig & Panic to get an idea of just how boundary-pushing his work was, and there aren’t going to be many who can dethrone the sax-wielding madman from his throne as jazz music’s most adventurous player.
