Roland Kirk : Third Dimension

Roland Kirk : Third Dimension

£20.00

Roland Kirk (tenor sax, manzello, stritch), James Madison (piano), Carl Pruitt (bass), Henry Duncan (drums)

Bethlehem 6064

Pure Pleasure Records : LP 180 gram

Brand New and Sealed Record

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A1 - Roland's Theme
A2 - Slow Groove
A3 - Stormy Weather
B1 - The Nearness of You
B2 - A La Carte
B3 - Easy Living
B4 - Triple Threat

Recorded in 1956

Triple Threat is the debut album by jazz multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk, originally released on the King label in 1956, re-released on the Bethlehem label as Third Dimension and on the Affinity label as Early Roots. The original album received limited distribution and only became widely known after it was rereleased a few years prior to Kirk's death in 1977. It features performances by Kirk with James Madison, Carl Pruitt and Henry Duncan. The album features the first recorded examples of Kirk's trademark playing of multiple wind instruments at the same time as well as two tracks ("Stormy Weather" and "The Nearness of You") where he overdubbed manzello and tenor saxophone. Kirk would later state that the album "was about the third overdub record in black classical music."

Arguably one of the most exciting saxophone soloists in jazz history, Kirk was a post-modernist before that term even existed. Kirk played the continuum of jazz tradition as an instrument unto itself; he felt little compunction about mixing and matching elements from the music’s history, and his concoctions usually seemed natural, if not inevitable.

The "golden age" of recordings was from 1955 to 1965, at the beginning of the LP and the stereo era, where pure vacuum tube amplification helped produce recordings demonstrating unparalleled fidelity and warmth, lifelike presence and illumination.

This Pure Pleasure LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the original analogue studio tapes through to the cutting head and was pressed with virgin vinyl at Pallas.