Does Your House Have Lions: The Rahsaan Roland Kirk Anthology

Rahsaan Roland Kirk | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 28, 1993)
• Original Release Date: September 28, 1993
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Atlantic
• ASIN: B00000332F
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,532 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #59 in Music > Jazz > New Orleans Jazz

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am

2. Conversation

3. Bye Bye Blackbird

4. If I Loved You [Live]

5. Old Rugged Cross

6. Ain't No Sunshine

7. Volunteered Slavery

8. Seasons: One Mind Winter/Summer/Ninth Ghost

9. Introduction [Live]

10. Medley: Going Home/Sentimental Journey/In Monument/Lover [Live]

See all 13 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. The Inflated Tear

2. Blacknuss

3. I Love You, Yes I Do

4. Portrait of Those Beautiful Ladies

5. Water for Robeson and Williams

6. A Laugh for Rory

7. The Entertainer [Done in the Style of the Blues]

8. Black Root

9. Carney and Bigard Place

10. Anysha

See all 15 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

This CD is an out of print collectible! Comes with outer slip cover and booklet.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Say A Little Prayer" meets "A Love Supreme", December 7, 2003

By 

m_noland "m_noland" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Does Your House Have Lions: The Rahsaan Roland Kirk Anthology (Audio CD)

As Stanley Crouch observes in his liner notes to this excellent two-disk set, Rahsaan Roland Kirk occupied an uncomfortable place in the saxophone pantheon clearly a notch below Coltrane and Rollins but clearly above professional journeyman. What set him apart (other than his absence of sight and his ability to play multiple reed instruments simultaneously) was his extraordinary capacity for synthesizing diverse musical styles, as amply documented in this excellent career overview.

Kirk ranged from the straight-ahead bop of "Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am" from a 1961 session with Mingus, to the eerie atmospherics of "The Inflated Tear" and "Seasons," to R&B "Volunteered Slavery" and "The Old Rugged Cross" (the word play of the spoken introduction to the latter is worth the price of admission alone - I would have loved to hear what Rahsaan would have made of rap) to pop "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Say A Little Prayer" (in which he quotes the "Acknowledgement" movement from "A Love Supreme") to observations on racial and sexual relations. A cranky sort of humane-ness comes through throughout.

If Coltrane was a seeker and Rollins a virtuoso, Rahsaan Roland Kirk was your eccentric neighbor sitting on his porch dealing out street wisdom. A worthy introduction to the career of a sadly missed musician.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It is a great Best-Of... but being a Best-Of is the problem, January 3, 2000

By 

macfawlty "macfawlty" (potomac, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Does Your House Have Lions: The Rahsaan Roland Kirk Anthology (Audio CD)

This is a great best-of for rahsaan, to be sure, and if you don't have alot of his music already, I would recommend it highly, but being a best-of means that the songs are taken out of the context of the albums they were recorded for, and it always leaves me with a feeling like... "hey, this is great..., but what about the music I am missing?". With Rahsaan, you don't want to be missing anything. My preference for Rahsaan is actually for box sets that are entire albums like Aces Back to Back, or Dog Years in the Fourth Ring, etc. Don't avoid buying this box if you just want a little, but get hip to rahsaan and accept the fact that you can't eat just one.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars unsung genius, July 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Does Your House Have Lions: The Rahsaan Roland Kirk Anthology (Audio CD)

it would be difficult to define the music that occupies this superb set. there is a tremendous range of influences from blues, traditional jazz, and folk to neo-classical, world music and avante-garde stylings, all bearing the sublime fingerprints of rahsaan. this is music that goes straight for the gut and hits its mark with perfect precision.