Some Favorite Things I’ve Wanted To Write Down - Continued

17 August 1961 John Coltrane at the Village Gate.

   The Music. Reggie Workman (bass) played pizzicato phrases while Art Davis (bass) employed an arco technique. The Village Gate introduction was in a way like that of Coltrane’s recording of “Dahomey’s Dance”. But it also was, or it had the feeling of, Jimmy Garrison’s solo introduction to the 57 minute Live in Japan 1966 recording of “My Favorite Things”, in which Jimmy Garrison uses both pizzicato and arco techniques. But the Village Gate arrangement followed the initial Atlantic recording except for the basses’ introduction and the additional instruments: a second bass, Eric Dolphy’s flute, and Roland Kirk’s three saxophones, nose whistle, and other stuff.

   Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk are on the bandstand. Reggie Workman (bass) and Art Davis (bass) have provided a lengthy introduction. McCoy Tyner (piano) plays an ostinato figure on the piano. John Coltrane plays the melody then solos. McCoy Tyner keeps the ostinato two-handed block chords coming. Roland Kirk is entranced, his movements were those of a prize fighter—a fighter with three saxophones hanging from his neck. Dolphy is looking up at the ceiling. Coltrane is back for another solo. Tyner keeps the block chords coming, pushing Coltrane’s soprano saxophone further out. Coltrane restates the theme after his intense solo. Next it’s Eric Dolphy’s solo on flute.

   The photographic image that I’ve had all of these years has been one that’s dark around its edges with a halo-like lighting in the center—the saxophone trinity of Coltrane, Dolphy, and Kirk in the center framed by the 6/8 rhythm machine con- sisting of the drummer Elvin Jones, the bassists Reggie Workman and Art Davis, and the pianist McCoy Tyner. Ostinato all around; ostinato all the way down.

   Throughout the introductions of Workman, Davis, and Tyner, and throughout the solos of Tyner, Coltrane, and Dolphy; Roland Kirk is bobbing and weaving with his army of saxophones, whistle, and other stuff, ready to engage “My Favorite Things”. I’m sure that the Village Gate “My Favorite Things” was more than an hour in duration (the Live in Japan recorded performance is 57 minutes).

   After being "on creative alert" for forty minutes or so, the one man saxophone ensemble that was Roland Kirk was beyond ready to play. I certainly can't describe to the reader how he played; except to say that he played his three saxophones all at once and punctuated an incredible solo with a whistle from his nose flute — Kirk’s incredible solo followed the incredible solos of Messrs. Davis, Workman, Coltrane, Tyner, Coltrane and Dolphy. Incredible solos? Solos characterized by forceful tones, harmonics, doubling the 6/8 rhythmic pulse, creating a rhythmic pulse on top of Elvin Jones’ polyrhythmic pulses---indescribable; I tried!

   There has been fixed in my memory and imaginings of that evening of stupendous music making and invention an image of the audience’s reaction to the sight of Eric Dolphy leading Roland Kirk, a blind man with his tangle of instruments, to the band stand. This image of mine, which has been constant, is one of me as a member of the audience witnessing the sight of Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk, witnessing this very reflexive seeing of a sight of . . . . This, hopefully non-vicious, visual regress appears to be in stereo—one mind’s eye on me qua audience member and one mind’s eye on the audience, including me. I also suppose that there could be a regress of mind’s eyes, too.

   My current explanatory hypothesis resides in the fact that I had met Roland Kirk a year before at the Half Note and I knew as a consequence of that meeting what to expect from him musically. The rest of Village Gate audience didn’t know what to expect from this blind man with his tangle of saxophones and other weird instruments, his assortment of found objects. Anyway that’s my thinking.

   After the music started I was totally transfixed. And my ‘memories’ of that fabulous night have been a fixed point for me over the past 50 years—me as a spectator amongst the other spectators, 17 August 1961. Memory and imagination hang together for me.

   As I noted above, for many years I couldn’t figure out exactly who the second bass player was; I knew that Art Davis was one of the bassists. I conjected that Reggie Workman might have been the other bassist, but I couldn’t be sure. A few years ago I asked Oliver Lake, who performs with Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille in the group Trio Three, if he would ask Workman if he was the other bassist that night in August, 1961. Reggie Workman thought that I might have been trying to peddle a bootleg recording of the music of that evening (I wish someone had a recording of that night!), and he refused to say whether he was on that gig or not. But some time later, Trio Three appeared at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I asked Reggie Workman directly. He replied, ”Yes. It was magical wasn’t it.”

   It was indeed, magical.