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.
John Kruth's extensive liner notes that accompany the disc, describe how a record producer once walked into a studio's sound booth and upon hearing Kirk's playing complimented the engineer on the great horn section in the studio that day. Needless to say he was astounded to find out it was only one man playing. While I've seen other horn players play two saxophones before - usually a tenor and an alto - I've never heard anyone play two different melody lines at the same time. He's actually harmonizing with himself on two separate horns If that sounds insanely difficult, it's only because it is.
Now, I don't have what you'd call a great ear when it comes to discerning things like key or other intricacies of music, but even I could hear that he was playing two different things on the two separate horns. There were moments when I was watching this DVD when I couldn't believe what my eyes and ears were telling me. If the recordings hadn't been so obviously made in 1963 and 1967, I would have sworn that they had been done using computer generated graphics in order for what Kirk was doing to be possible.
Of course Rahsaan wasn't limited to playing saxophones, or reed instruments, he was also a remarkable flutist. Listening to him play his flute on the two versions of "Three For The Festival" that are included on this disc, one from the concert in Holland in 1963 the other four years later in Norway, you not only hear how talented a player he was, but you hear how he continually evolved his playing style. While its still obviously the same tune, the version he plays in Norway is far more sophisticated then the earlier performance. The texture of the song's sound seems to have become thicker in the intervening years, as if Kirk has built an additional layer of sound into it somehow.
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