Rahsaan Roland Kirk
*
Mystical Dream 
__________________________________________
1
Man's eye loves a horizon, and the aural equivalent of
horizon is unmolested air -- space, silence. Breath is the natural mechanism;
silence is the fundamental element of all auditory perception, whence the
homunculus of sound begins its travels. Therefore it is golden 'cuz of both
its purity and it's wealth of potentialities.
"Music is a profanation of silence in the interest of
silence." (Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn, pg. 332 -- look it up).
Music is anticipatory of silence, of the deep inhalation and exhalation
following a particularly brilliant or frenzied passage, the great awed hush
that births applause; all things dream on their creator. By this criteria,
Roland Kirk's flute work is stunning, because in his more ambitious moments
(when you're more apt to notice) he provides a foretaste of silence -- it's
there in between the flute-noises, in all those breaths he's taking (cuz'
you sure can hear 'em!). Lots of room even in all that energy. He provides
a sort of mandala circle of the birth-death of a note: the breathing akin
to space (where the note is born), the flute sounding and then returning
to the breath. For the adventurous who would look even deeper into
this, his playing is also a perfect realization of the non-duality of
subject-object -- a monist principle of Buddhist dharma, expounded in extremes
in the Chittamara or Mind Only school. You are not just hearing a flute;
you are not just hearing a guy sing, hum, scream, and breathe: you are hearing
all these things (and more) at the same time, because the flute is the man
and the man is the...
This method just assigns so much more weight to the thing
as a soloing instrument, none of the light, airy garbage that flutes are
known for; big thick brush strokes, like those ugly early paintings of Cezanne.
Expression of a brute simplicity of sensational perceptions cum complex
manifestations/expressions. Baseball bats in stumble-flight...as instantly
here as they are gone -- check out
"One
Ton." It is the acme.
And flute is just ONE of the instruments he plays.
2
There's some people who think art and austerity walk
hand in hand -- I suppose a lack of austerity is oft misconstrued as a lack
of sincerity or seriousness, when these latter two have absolutely nothing
to do with the former. A sense of humor or irony does not detract from one's
commitment to art. Actually enjoying yourself and letting your guard down
-- what kind of a nut would do that, right? There's a lyric in a Dead Moon
song where Fred Cole bemoans artists and the "feeling that we know they'll
censure/ for fear they'd be caught in adventure." Safety lies in
conventions of thought, speech, and action. Deviancy is just too gauche to
be permitted; but deviancy paves the road to salvation. I think you would
find those who assign less importance to the visceral product and experience
of art, and all the adventitious uses for it in life, dealing in conventional
styles because they care more for extrinsic validation than for impact or
actual worth. I mean, what has art ever really been about but dialogue? Isn't
that the function, the purpose of these varied media stuffs? The most important
thing art can do is open avenues to interpretation. (Unfortunately some people
have got it into their minds that writing is supposed to be about clear
communication of ideas, and this is translated as just a direct,
hand-over-all-you-got-with-a-spoon-method prevalent everywhere, but we're
talking music...)
I hear you crying, yelling, "When will he remember why
we're here: ROLAND KIRK?!!!" My point is that, while Miles Davis dialogues
with nuthin' in his cool/dull approach, Roland dialogues with everything.
And what more could you want?
______________________________
*
Ted Bryan is a seventeen-year-old Portland, Oregon resident who was co-winner of the 2006 Accent on Youth Essay Contest, as judged by jazz critic Gary Giddins, vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, and the publisher of Jerry Jazz Musician. His passion for jazz is the focus of the column.
Write Ted an email
*
Accent on Youth archive
|
