Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith (2025 Remaster) Rahsaan Roland Kirk

• 1 Blue Rol 06:09
• 2 Alfie 02:52
• 3 Why Don't They Know 02:54
• 4 Silverlization 04:59
• 5 Fall Out 03:04
• 6 Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith 04:23
• 7 Stompin' Grounds 04:46
• 8 It's A Grand Night For Swinging 03:10
• Total Runtime 32:17

Info zu Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith (2025 Remaster)

Roland Kirk was a glorious one-off. His live shows – often a curious blend of stand-up comedy, political preaching, and cutting-edge jazz – were legendary; so was his ability to play three saxophones simultaneously. But the man who brought chaos to The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971 is also the same man that produced the one-off Verve gem Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith. Capturing the multi-instrumentalist in a fairly orthodox jazz setting, Now Please Don’t You Cry remains one of the best examples of what straight-ahead Kirk sounded like.

Verve executive producer Creed Taylor was well aware of Kirk, and invited him to record a session for the label at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in April 1967. Among Kirk’s sidemen was former Jazz Messenger pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, former Sun Ra bassist Ronnie Boykins, and drummer Grady Tate, a stalwart of Verve sessions for Jimmy Smith, Kenny Burrell, and Wes Montgomery. The result, Now Please Don’t You Cry, was eclectic but relatively subdued, combining hard bop with pop, rhythm and blues, and Latin music.

The album mainly consisted of original material, ranging from “Blue Rol,” a slow, simmering late-night blues with a hint of Duke Ellington in its DNA, to the modal-flavored “Silverlization” and “Fall Out,” an infectious rhythm and blues romp highlighting Kirk’s growling sax. Although it began with shrill nose flute toots and Kirk shouting the title wildly, “Why Don’t They Know,” settles into a smooth bossa nova style groove. Arguably, the pick of Kirk’s self-penned material was the album’s title track, a beautiful emotive ballad spotlighting Kirk’s lyricism. Name-checking his second wife, Edith, it’s a sublime track with a sultry, after-hours ambiance.

But for many, the album’s standout track was Kirk’s interpretation of a contemporary pop song, Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s movie ballad, “Alfie.” His tenor saxophone playing was sublime; at the end, he sneaked in a quote from Sonny Rollins’ same-titled track before closing with a deft passage of three-horn harmonization.

Often overshadowed by his recordings for other labels, Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith is an underappreciated gem in Kirk’s extensive discography. It may not be as revolutionary as Ed Sullivan performance or as exploratory as The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color, but it’s a wonderful example of his prowess as a supremely gifted saxophonist and flutist. By turns playful and serious, joyous and doleful, Kirk’s only Verve album paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary man and musician whose talents knew no bounds.

"Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith (about Kirk's wife) was the first of his all groove sides. Out of ten tunes, Kirk composed eight, of the other two, only one was a recognizable jazz tune ("It's a Grand Night for Swinging" by Billy Taylor, who wrote the liner notes) and the other was a pop tune (Bacharach and David's "Alfie"). Unlike Rip, Rig, and Panic from two years earlier in 1965, this set featured an in-the-pocket rhythm section. Adventure was not the name of the game on this date, feeling was -- and for the job he got some of the finest cats working in the groove jazz idiom: drummer Grady Tate, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, and bassist Roland Boykins. The record opens with "Blue Rol," a standard blues made more beautiful by Kirk's playing three horns throughout except for his tenor solo and Smith's tough comping in the middle register. "Alfie" is another story. Kirk blows his tenor with the same tonal warmth Ben Webster did by reading the melody faithfully and tenderly adding fills with Smith, slipping around him for subtle accents, adding color and dimension even when he picks up the tempo, which is led by a steaming, hard-swinging Tate. The end of the album is very special as well, as the title track features the only outside playing on the disc, but it feels more like it's honking R&B shouting rather than vanguard invention as it gives way to the gorgeous Latin swing of the melody. Finally, on the Taylor tune, after a breathtaking arpeggio orgy on "Stompin' Grounds" between Kirk and Smith, the elegance of the musician shines through, as Kirk's flute sweeps through the rhythm section, carrying the cut-time number through a bop permutation or two before coming back to the blues in his solo. Smith's pianism here is so light, his touch so quick and fluid, Kirk can't help but cruise over the tune. This was the beginning of the exploration that led listeners to Blacknuss and Boogie Woogie String Along for Real, and it is worth every bit as those two recordings." (Thom Jurek, AMG)

Roland Kirk, tenor saxophone, manzello, stritch, flute
Lonnie Liston Smith, piano
Ronnie Boykins, bass
Grady Tate, drums

Recorded May 2, 1967 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Produced by Creed Taylor

Digitally remastered

Rahsaan Roland Kirk
(multi-instrumentalist) was born in Columbus, Ohio on Aug. 7, 1935 and passed away on Dec. 5, 1977 in Bloomington, Indiana.

Kirk was born Ronald Theodore Kirk, but felt compelled by a dream to transpose two letters in his first name to make Roland. He became blind at the age of two, as a result of poor medical treatment. In 1970, Kirk added “Rahsaan” to his name after hearing it in a dream.

He started playing the bugle and trumpet, then learned the clarinet and C-melody sax. Kirk began playing tenor sax professionally in R&B bands at the age of 15. While a teenager, he discovered the “Manzello” and “Stritch” — the former, a modified version of the Saxello, which was itself a slightly curved variant of the B flat soprano sax; the latter, a modified straight E flat alto. To these and other instruments, Kirk began making his own improvements. He reshaped all three of his saxes so that they could be played simultaneously; he’d play tenor with his left hand, finger the Manzello with his right, and sound a drone on the Stritch, for instance. Kirk’s self-invented technique was in evidence from his first recording, a 1956 R&B record called Triple Threat. By 1960 he had begun to incorporate a siren whistle into his solos, and by ’63 he had mastered circular breathing, a technique that enabled him to play without pause for breath.

In his early 20s, Kirk worked in Louisville before moving to Chicago in 1960. That year he made his second album, Introducing Roland Kirk, which featured saxophonist/trumpeter Ira Sullivan. In 1961, Kirk toured Germany and spent three months with Charles Mingus. From that point onward, Kirk mostly led his own group, the Vibration Society, recording prolifically with a range of sidemen.

Preferring to lead his own bands, Kirk rarely performed as a sideman, although he did record with arranger Quincy Jones and drummer Roy Haynes and had notable stints with bassist Charles Mingus. One of his best-known recorded performances is the lead flute and solo on Jones’ “Soul Bossa Nova”, a 1964 hit song re-popularized in the Austin Powers films (Jones 1964; McLeod et al. 1997). In the early ’70s, Kirk became something of an activist; he led the “Jazz and People’s Movement,” a group devoted to opening up new opportunities for jazz musicians. His playing was generally rooted in soul jazz or hard bop, but Kirk’s knowledge of jazz history allowed him to draw on many elements of the music’s past, from ragtime to swing and free jazz. Kirk also absorbed classical influences, and his artistry reflected elements of pop music by composers such as Smokey Robinson and Burt Bacharach, as well as Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and other jazz musicians.

The live album Bright Moments (1973) is an example of one of his shows. His main instrument was the tenor saxophone, supplemented by other saxes, and contrasted with the lighter sound of the flute. At times he would play a number of these horns at once, harmonizing with himself, or sustain a note for lengthy durations by using circular breathing, or play the rare, seldom heard nose flute. A number of his instruments were exotic or homemade, but even while playing two or three saxophones at once, the music was intricate, powerful jazz with a strong feel for the blues.

Kirk was politically outspoken. During his concerts, between songs he often talked about topical issues, including black history and the civil rights movement. His monologues were often laced with satire and absurdist humor. According to white comedian Jay Leno, when Leno toured with Kirk as Kirk’s opening act, Kirk would introduce him by saying, “I want to introduce a young brother who knows the black experience and knows all about the white devils …. Please welcome Jay Leno!”

In 1975, Kirk suffered a major stroke which led to partial paralysis of one side of his body. However, he continued to perform and record, modifying his instruments to enable him to play with one arm. At a live performance at Ronnie Scott’s club in London he even managed to play two instruments, and carried on to tour internationally and even appear on television.

He died from a second stroke in 1977 after performing in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana University Student Union in Bloomington, Indiana.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet