‘Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith’: Roland Kirk’s Soulful Jazz Gem
The blind multi-instrumentalist’s 1967 album was his only recording for Verve Records.
Roland Kirk was a glorious one-off. His live shows – often a curious blend of stand-up comedy, political preaching, and cutting-edge jazz – were legendary; so was his ability to play three saxophones simultaneously. But the man who brought chaos to The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971 is also the same man that produced the one-off Verve gem Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith. Capturing the multi-instrumentalist in a fairly orthodox jazz setting, Now Please Don’t You Cry remains one of the best examples of what straight-ahead Kirk sounded like.
Born Ronald Theodore Kirk in Columbus, Ohio in 1935, Kirk lost his sight at age two but it didn’t prevent him from pursuing his love of music. Showing an innate aptitude for wind instruments, he was playing professionally at fifteen and would wow audiences with his party trick: blowing three horns at once. Inspired by a dream to rearrange the letters of his first name Ronald into Roland, Kirk recorded his debut LP Triple Threat at age 22 in 1957. A decade later, Kirk was well known in the jazz community, with at least one bona fide classic – 1965’s Rip, Rig and Panic – under his belt.
Verve executive producer Creed Taylor was well aware of Kirk, and invited him to record a session for the label at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in April 1967. Among Kirk’s sidemen was former Jazz Messenger pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, former Sun Ra bassist Ronnie Boykins, and drummer Grady Tate, a stalwart of Verve sessions for Jimmy Smith, Kenny Burrell, and Wes Montgomery. The result, Now Please Don’t You Cry, was eclectic but relatively subdued, combining hard bop with pop, rhythm and blues, and Latin music.
The album mainly consisted of original material, ranging from “Blue Rol,” a slow, simmering late-night blues with a hint of Duke Ellington in its DNA, to the modal-flavored “Silverlization” and “Fall Out,” an infectious rhythm and blues romp highlighting Kirk’s growling sax. Although it began with shrill nose flute toots and Kirk shouting the title wildly, “Why Don’t They Know,” settles into a smooth bossa nova style groove. Arguably, the pick of Kirk’s self-penned material was the album’s title track, a beautiful emotive ballad spotlighting Kirk’s lyricism. Name-checking his second wife, Edith, it’s a sublime track with a sultry, after-hours ambiance.
But for many, the album’s standout track was Kirk’s interpretation of a contemporary pop song, Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s movie ballad, “Alfie.” His tenor saxophone playing was sublime; at the end, he sneaked in a quote from Sonny Rollins’ same-titled track before closing with a deft passage of three-horn harmonization.
Often overshadowed by his recordings for other labels, Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith is an underappreciated gem in Kirk’s extensive discography. It may not be as revolutionary as Ed Sullivan performance or as exploratory as The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color, but it’s a wonderful example of his prowess as a supremely gifted saxophonist and flutist. By turns playful and serious, joyous and doleful, Kirk’s only Verve album paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary man and musician whose talents knew no bounds.
Order Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith on vinyl now.
