Rahsaan Roland Kirk Blacknuss

From the first bars with which Bill Saler's bass and Rahsaan's flute passionately interpret Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine", you know that this is no ordinary Kirk album (did it even exist?). When the strings, the electric piano, the drums and Cornel Dupree's guitar join through the back door, you can feel the rich soul groove that Kirk puts in the foreground here. When the melody fades just two and a half minutes later, the cry of Kirk's tenor saxophone sounds through the intro of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On", with a funk backdrop, but without any wink or irony - he means it.
With Richard Tee's drums, the strings developing into a wall of tension in the background, and Charles McGhee's trumpet throwing the suspense back on Kirk, all predictions and expectations are invalid – especially as the medley develops in "Mercy Mercy Me." When the musicians reach the end of "I Love You, Yes I Do" by the Isleys, with the pipes, gongs, screams, soul sniffs, deep groove noise and greasy funk dripping from every sugar-sweet note, the record could be over because the world has already turned on its back and surrendered - but the album is only ten minutes old! "Blacknuss" is, like "The Inflated Tear", "Volunteered Slavery", "Rip, Rig And Panic" and "I Talk To The Spirits", Kirk in its most visionary form. He took pop out of pop and made great black music out of it. He put a damper on the jazz world so that it could feel its roots in the music of the people, and consequently turned pop music into great jazz, just as his ancestors did with Broadway show melodies. While the entire album glows like a big black sun, the other outstanding works are a deeply moving interpretation of "My Girl" and a version of "The Old Rugged Cross" that forever takes it out of the hands of those white fundamentalists who replaced all the blood and sweat from inside with cheap tin and collection plates. In Kirk's version, grace is not cheap, although one can certainly be a poor person to receive it. Ladies and gentlemen, "Blacknuss" is as profound as a soul record can be, and as hot as a jazz record can rightly call itself.

Features:

• 180g Vinyl
• Analogue Limited Edition

Musicians:

• Rahsaan Roland Kirk (ts, fl, manzello, stritch, whistle, gong, voc)
• Dick Griffin (tb)
• Charles McGhee (tp)
• Billy Butler (g)
• Richard Tee (p)
• Mickey Turner (org)
• Henry Pearson (b)
• Bernard Purdie, Khalil Mhdri (dr)
• Arthur Jenkins (cga, perc); u.a.

Selections:

Side A
1. Ain't No Sunshine
2. What's Going On / Mercy Mercy me (The Ecology)
3. I Love You Yes I Do
4. Take Me Girl, I'm Ready
5. My Girl
6. Which Way Is It Going
7. One Nation
Side B
1. I Never Can Say Goodbye
2. Old Rugged Cross
3. Make It With You
4. Blacknuss