frankmulder schreef:
Voor de nieuwsgierigen (voordat men het vraagt): ik ben aangewezen om het volgende album uit te kiezen.

allaboutjazz.com schreef:
The recording is a gem for what it presents in new sounds and tones. From the opening title track, the listener is introduced to the fretless acoustic guitar. The unique tone, which has always distinguished Pat and made him a source of imitation in the genre, offers a new and refreshing color to his and the Group's music that will hopefully lead us to new places in the future. Also on the first track, which I noticed upon a second listening of the recording, but also discovered neatly inserted in my factual press kit was a synthesizer solo by long time Metheny collaborator and Group member, Lyle Mays, which is his first since the definitive, “Are You Going With Me” from the 1981 Offramp and subsequent live recording, Travels.

Throughout the first part of the recording the listener is invited on a trip led by the Group and is rarely diverted with the exception of the too radio friendly “Follow Me” which in its second track placement certainly risks derailing the listener. Upon arrival at track 7, “The Roots of Coincidence”, the listener encounters a connection via the Internet. Remarkably, I have not heard this before. Pat has sampled, or recorded, the sound of a phone/modem dial-up and its subsequent handshake with the server. It is unique and almost unbelievable, I even went to check my email upon hearing the connection before realizing it was on the recording and not on my computer. A quick note to the listener — do not skip to track 7 for the sample, you must go via track 6, “Across The Sky” to get there.

frankmulder schreef:
(en ik wacht ook nog op de reactie van blabla ).

Mark Davis schreef:
There is an expression on often hears when listening to black jazz artists discussing their music - "Has he paid his dues?" It would seem in retrospect that almost without exception the extent of dues to be paid is closely related to the extent of gift, talent, daring, innovation, etc. It should be quite painful, even for the non-musician onlooker, to observe the tremendous pain and degredation that America extracts from its greatest black artists, almost without exception, in the form of dues.
Some look back and find it quite easy to avoid the question of dues by connecting them somehow to a racism that is supposed to have (but in reality never has) largely left America. The black genius still pays dues and the price is still to steep, often life itself.
One might wonder what the artist has to do to gain deserved recognition. What are America's expectations of the black artist? What dues must he pay? Has modern America so thoroughly stereotyped its new black creators into quiet, always serious, non-communicative, oversensitive, introverted and addicted personalities that exceptions like Rahsaan Roland Kirk are almost doomed to excruciating pain and searching for positive forces and are, ironically, cast as social deviants.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk is in many ways unfortunate. He is a truly unique black genius born to live in a world that has set traps against such a person. He has been paying his dues for years now while attempting to master all idioms of Black Classical Music. He has indeed become an historian of this music; and yet the price, those tremendous dues, still persist.

Rahsaan is a tenor man - the tenor saxophone man. To anyone who has truly studied his music of today this is an indeniable fact. Yet, because he is black, has mastered other instruments, is outspoken, knows his place in music, feigns no false humility, at times has the audacity to enjoy himself on stage (something apparently unpardonable in a black jazz artist today) and refuses to be stereotyped either musically or as a man, he has so far not been accorded the recognition he deserves as a serious artist and one of the all time masters of the tenor saxophone. Concerto is a truly unbelieveable nonstop breathathon that speaks so powerfully for itself in this regard.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this lack of recognition is part of the painful price he must pay for his genius: or, maybe when he is dead and buried the recognition will come.
I, for one, hope this is not the case, for Rahsaan, in life, with a tenor saxophone in his hands, is a revelation to behold.

allaboutjazz.com schreef:
And still the highlights are found in Kirk’s own compositions. The 21-minute “Saxophone Concerto,” the centerpiece of Prepare Thyself to Deal with a Miracle, showcases Kirk's nonpareil tenor playing. His use of circular breathing is unique in that rather than resort to whirling, repetitive figures, a la Pharoah Sanders or Evan Parker, he weaves an endlessly inventive melodic line. The liner notes contain Dorn's notice to Kenny G that Rahsaan held a note longer than the G-man; that may be, but the “Saxophone Concerto” is abundant evidence that whether or not he held a note longer, he without any doubt held it better. He plays a warehouse full of other instruments on these discs, but this track alone is worth the purchase price. Left & Right and Prepare Thyself to Deal with a Miracle also feature Kirk's deft string arrangements.