Why is it that in every musical genre there have to be people who appoint themselves as the protectors of its integrity. I hate to admit that the majority of the time these people are critics who seem to feel they know what the music is better than the people who play it. Unfortunately, that means they usually end up doing their best to squelch anything innovative or different as it messes with their vision of what the music should be.
Even worse are the ones who set themselves up as some sort of moral arbitrator which gives them the right to decide whether a musician's labour should be taken seriously or dismissed as inconsequential. If someone dares to have fun, or do anything that might look the slightest bit like they weren't taking the music seriously, they would be quick to denounce the hapless soul with accusations of reducing the music to a side show. We critics live to be taken seriously, so if there's the slightest chance that something might bring us down from the little points on high where we sit in judgment, we lash out with all the outrage and sanctimoniousness of the insecure.
So it's not really that surprising to read that quite a few jazz music critics, so called purists, treated Rahsaan Roland Kirk with the same amount of respect they would a circus sideshow freak when he first started playing. According to the liner notes included in the DVD, Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Live in '63 & '67, part of the Jazz Icons 3 being released on September 30th by Reelin' In The Years and Naxos, their disdain was based on the fact that not only was Kirk able to play more then one of his instruments at a time, but he would also appear in concert festooned with them all around his neck. If that wasn't bad enough, he had the gall to make use of instruments that either he had modified to suit his needs or were strange things like nose flutes and whistles.
Now, I must admit the first time you catch site of Rahsaan Roland Kirk in the Live In '63 & '67 DVD it's a little disconcerting. For not only does he wear the saxophone he's playing around his neck, but he also has two other saxophone type instruments, and other, smaller and not instantly recognizable, instruments wrapped around his neck that turn out to be a nose flute and a whistle with a miniature saxophone bell attached. As you watch the DVD and the excerpts from the three concerts included on it, Belgium and Holland in 1963 and Norway in 1967, you realize that's only the start, as he routinely adds more instruments. Another modified saxophone, this one with a French Horn bell, is looped around his neck, a flute appears in the bell of his alto saxophone, and castanets appear as if by magic in one of his hands.
There are two reasons for Kirk to be wearing so many instruments at once and they are interconnected. First of all he is blind and because he switches between them so frequently, and or plays more than one at a time, he can't afford to spend time groping around on stage trying to find the one he needs at any particular moment. While some critics might have dismissed his playing multiple instruments as some sort of gimmick, and dismissed it as not being music or jazz, one only has to listen to Kirk's playing to realize how much blinder they were than him.
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