Bright Moments

Product Description:

Personnel: Rahsaan Roland Kirk (various instruments), Ron Burton (piano), Todd Barkan (synthesizer, tambourine), Henry Pearson (bass), Robert Shy (drums), Joe Habao (percussion).

Engineers: Ed Barton, Biff Davies, Jack Crymes (all tracks).

Recorded live at Keystone Korner, San Francisco, California from June 8-9, 1973. Originally released on Atlantic (2907). Includes original release liner notes by Bob Drinkwater, Todd Barkan and Joel Dorn.

All songs written by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, except "You'll Never Get To Heaven" (Burt Bacharach/Hal David), "Prelude To A Kiss" (Duke Ellington/Irving Gordon/Irving Mills), "If I Loved You" (Richard Rogers/

Oscar Hammerstein II) and "Jitterbug Waltz" (Fats Waller).

By the mid-'70s, jazz had in large part become stagnant, with increasingly emotionless fusion and bloodless light jazz establishing commercial precedence, the free jazz and avant-garde explorers of the '60s toiling in increasing artistic and commercial obscurity, and the grand old men and women of the music's early years dying or retiring to the supper club circuit. And then there was Rahsaan Roland Kirk. A man with no musical prejudices, Kirk took what he liked from fusion, light jazz-pop, avant-garde experimentation and his own encyclopedic knowledge of jazz history. Nowhere was Kirk more powerful and iconoclastic than on stage, and this scorching two-disc, 14-track live set, recorded in June, 1973, is one of the greatest of his many live recordings. Backed with a sympathetic and skilled group, Kirk blends standards like "You'll Never Get to Heaven" with free explorations filled with uncommon verve and fire. A classic of live jazz.