Roland Kirk Quartet: Rip, Rig And Panic [ELEMENTAL]

Why you'll love it

This Elemental Music reissue comes on 180g vinyl in a gatefold jacket with a four-page LP-size insert of the original liner notes. AllMusic gives it five stars, and the Penguin Guide to Jazz placed it in its core collection.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• 4-page LP-size insert with the original liner notes
• Stereo mix

About the album

Roland Kirk could play three saxophones at once, the sort of fact that leads people to expect a party trick. Rip, Rig and Panic is the record that shows how much music sat behind it. Kirk explained the title in those liner notes: people, even musicians, were asleep like Rip Van Winkle, their minds stiff as rigor mortis, and when they heard him do things they didn't think could be done, they panicked.

He cut it at Rudy Van Gelder's studio on January 13, 1965, with what's been called the most awesome rhythm section he ever recorded with: Jaki Byard on piano, Richard Davis on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. Kirk plays tenor, stritch, manzello, flute, oboe and a siren. "No Tonic Pres" nods to Lester Young, "From Bechet, Byas and Fats" tips its hat to three heroes, "Once in a While" was inspired by Clifford Brown, and the title track draws on his love of Edgard Varèse.

The English post-punk band Rip Rig + Panic later took their name from it, with a young Neneh Cherry in the line-up. Which makes this, by our count, the rare jazz album with a direct line to "Buffalo Stance."

Also at Kops: more Roland Kirk on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Limelight / Elemental Music (cat# 700232), a reissue of the 1965 album.