*** Rahsaan Roland Kirk

LEFT HOOK, RIGHT CROSS

(32 Jazz)

The albums Volunteered Slavery (1969) and Blacknuss (1971) were apparently the most commercially calculated of Kirk's career, but they were also the most radical. Packaged in a double-CD set in 32 Jazz's ongoing Kirk reissue series, they're shouting, exuberant messes. Kirk covers hits of the day (by Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye) alongside jazz standards and originals. The gospel backing choruses, Isaac Hayes-style wah-wahing rhythm guitar, occasional string arrangements, and rattling tambourine underline the soul-music feel. Kirk plays his patented simultaneous one-man horn section (tenor, the soprano-like manzello, and the alto-like stritch) and occasional flute; you also get his attendant sputtering, vocalizing, grunting, and outer-space birdcalls.

All told, it's some of his unprettiest playing, and you could argue that the arrangements are dated and tasteless. He introduces "I Say a Little Prayer" over gospel piano chords, saying, "They shot him down," then launches into the most slamming, "militant" uptempo arrangement of this Bacharach/David confection you're likely to hear. Several tracks were recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival only months after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King (and weeks after Robert Kennedy), so you'll know why you're being sucked in despite yourself. On these albums, Kirk is an artist completely immersed in the currents of his time, bursting at the seams with emotion, a mixture of pain and joy that's nothing less than cathartic.

-- Jon Garelick