ROLAND KIRK - Volunteered Slavery (1969-2005) Atlantic Masters | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Before the issue of Blacknuss, Rahsaan Roland Kirk was already exploring ways in which to make soul and R&B rub up against jazz and come out sounding like deep-heart party music. Volunteered Slavery, with its beat/African chanted poetry and post-bop blues ethos was certainly the first strike in the right direction. With a band that included Charles McGhee on trumpet, Dick Griffin on trombone, organist Mickey Tucker, bassist Vernon Martin, drummers Jimmy Hopps and Charles Grady, as well as Sony Brown, Kirk made it work. From the stinging blues call and response of the tile track through the killer modern creative choir jam on "Spirits Up Above" taking a small cue from Archie Shepp's Attica Blues. But it's when Kirk moves into the covers, of "My Cherie Amour," "I Say a Little Prayer," and the Coltrane medley of "Afro Blue," "Lush Life," and "Bessie's Blues," that Kirk sets it all in context: how the simplest melody that makes a record that sells millions and touches people emotionally, can be filled with the same heart as a modal, intricate masterpiece that gets a few thousand people to open up enough that they don't think the same way anymore. For Kirk, this is all part of the black musical experience. Granted, on Volunteered Slavery he's a little more formal than he would be on Blacknuss, but it's the beginning of the vein he's mining. And when the album reaches its end on "Three for the Festival," Kirk proves that he is indeed the master of any music he plays because his sense of harmony, rhythm, and melody comes not only from the masters acknowledged, but also from the collective heart of the people the masters touched. It's just awesome.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1     Volunteered Slavery 5'43
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
2     Spirits up Above 3'37
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
3     My Cherie Amour 3'20
Henry Cosby / Sylvia Moy / Stevie Wonder
4    Search for the Reason Why 2'07
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
5     I Say a Little Prayer 7'59
Burt Bacharach / Hal David
6     Roland's Opening Remarks 0'41
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
7     One Ton 5'02
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
8     Ovation and Roland's Remarks 1'42
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
9     A Tribute to John Coltrane: Lush Life/Afro-Blue/Bessie's Blues 8'14
John Coltrane / Mongo Santamaría / Billy Strayhorn
10     Three for the Festival 4'23
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Credits :
Backing Vocals [Vocal Backgrounds] – Roland Kirk Spirit Choir
Bass – Vernon Martin
Drums – Charles Crosby, Jimmy Hopps, Sonny Brown
Piano – Ron Burton
Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Nose Flute, Horns [Mazello, Stritch], Gong, Whistle, Vocals – Roland Kirk
Trombone – Dick Griffin
Trumpet – Charles McGhee

ROLAND KIRK - Left & Right (1969-2002) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

The title of this album, Left and Right, no doubt refers to the sides of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's brain, which were both heavily taxed in the composing, arranging, conducting, and playing of this recording. For starters, the band is huge -- 17 players plus a 16-piece string section, all of it arranged and conducted by Kirk, a blind man. None of this would matter a damn if this weren't such a badass platter. Along with Kirk's usual crew of Ron Burton, Julius Watkins, Dick Griffin, Jimmy Hopps, and Gerald Brown, there are luminaries in the crowd including Alice Coltrane on harp, Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone, and no less than Roy Haynes helping out on the skins. What it all means is this: The man who surprised and outraged everybody on the scene -- as well as blew most away -- was at it again here in "Expansions," his wildly ambitious and swinging post-Coltrane suite, which has "Black Mystery Has Been Revealed" as its prelude. While there are other tracks on this record, this suite is its centerpiece and masterpiece -- despite killer readings of Billy Strayhorn's "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing" and "Quintessence." "Expansions" has Kirk putting his entire harmonic range on display, and all of the timbral extensions he used in his own playing are charted for a string section to articulate. There are subtleties, of course, which come off as merely tonal variations in extant harmony with the other instruments, but when they are juxtaposed against a portrayal of the entire history of jazz -- from Jelly Roll Morton to the present day -- then they become something else: the storytellers, the timbres, and the chromatic extensions that point in the right direction and get listeners to stop in the right places. This is an extreme for Rahsaan -- extremely brilliant and thoroughly accessible.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1    Black Mystery Has Been Revealed 1:16
Written-By – Roland Kirk
2    Expansions: (A) Kirkquest, (B) Kingus Mingus, (C) Celestialness, (D) A Dream Of Beauty Reincarnated, (E) Frisco Vibrations, (F) Classical Jazzical, (G) Ellington Psalms, (H) Haynes' Brain's Sayin's, (I) What's Next-Overture 19:35
Written-By – Roland Kirk
3    Lady's Blues 3:44
Written-By – Roland Kirk
4    IX Love 3:38          
Written-By – Charles Mingus
5    Hot Cha 3:21
Written-By – Willie Woods
6    Quintessence 4:10
Written-By – Quincy Jones
7    I Waited For You 2:52
Written-By – Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Fuller
8    A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing 3:56
Written-By – Billy Strayhorn
Credits :
Arranged By [String Section] – Gilbert Fuller (pistas: 3 to 8)
Baritone Saxophone – Pepper Adams (pistas: 2)
Bass – Vernon Martin (pistas: 2 to 8)
Bass Trombone – Benny Powell (pistas: 2)
Bassoon – Daniel Jones (pistas: 2)
Celesta, Thumb Piano, Instruments [Small Instruments] – Roland Kirk (pistas: 2)
Clarinet, Organ, Narrator – Roland Kirk (pistas: 1)
Drums – Jimmy Hopps (pistas: 2), Roy Haynes (pistas: 3 to 8)
Flute – Roland Kirk (pistas: 2, 3)
French Horn – James Buffington (pistas: 3 to 8), Julius Watkins (pistas: 3 to 8)
Harp – Alice Coltrane (pistas: 2)
Horns [Manzello] – Roland Kirk (pistas: 2, 5, 6)
Horns [Stritch] – Roland Kirk (pistas: 2, 8)
Percussion – Gerald Brown (pistas: 2), Warren Smith (pistas: 2 to 8)
Piano – Ron Burton (pistas: 2 to 8)
Strings – Alfred Brown (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Anthony Sophos (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Charles McCracken (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Gene Orloff (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), George Ockner (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Harold Furmansky (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), James Buffington* (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Joseph Malignaggi (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Julien Barber (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Leo Kruczek (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Matthew Raimondi (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Noel Dacosta (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Richard Elias (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Sanford Allen (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Selwart Clarke (pistas: 1, 3 to 8), Winston Collymore (pistas: 1, 3 to 8)
Tenor Saxophone – Roland Kirk (pistas: 2, 4, 5, 7)
Trombone – Dick Griffin (pistas: 2)
Trumpet – Richard Williams (pistas: 2)
Vibraphone [Vibes], Percussion – Warren Smith (pistas: 3 to 8)
Woodwind – Frank Wess (pistas: 3 to 8)