Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Live at the Penthouse
(Resonance Records)
⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

THESE previously unreleased tracks, recorded in 1967 at the Penthouse, Seattle, feature the great blind reedman, Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1936-77), pianist Rahn Burton, bassist Steve Novosel and drummer Jimmy Hopps.

Multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan, a reed section in himself, playing tenor saxophone, stritch and manzello simultaneously and oftentimes flute, switches from current pop-tunes like Ode To Billie Joe and Alfie, to Ellingtonia (Prelude to a Kiss) and his own compositions like Lovellevelliloqui with stunning protean virtuosity, always giving dexterous solo time to his quartet-mates.

One of jazz’s finest and most flamboyant geniuses, this double album catches him live at the height of his astonishing powers, and includes two medleys where he takes apart and reinvents ballads like Every Time We Say Goodbye and good-time anthems like Happy Days Are Here Again. A huge tonic for 2026, undermining all the bad things presently coming out of the US. Brilliant!

Maggie Nicols/Robert Mitchell/Alya Al Sultani
Immersion
(Discus Records)
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

The piano of Ilford-born Robert Mitchell is accompanied by three voices on his new album, Immersion: his own, the wayward sounds of 1948-born veteran oral improviser Maggie Nicols, and that of the vocalist from Basrah, Iraq, Alya al-Sultani.

Mitchell attests that the trio might have received “the co-ordinates of the most important treasure: living in peace.” The two women give his writings “stunningly bespoke clothing,” and transform his words into one coalesced message.

It’s a unique album, and I doubt if poetry has ever achieved such an original musical timbre, particularly as the album is the result of completely unrehearsed studio sessions by three disparate musicians who had never previously performed together, and who out of apparent wide divergence, create a precious real-times unity.

“Playing with poetry with great improvisers has become one of my life’s great joys,” exclaims Alya. Hear what you think.

Gordon Beck Trio and Quintet
Pay Now, Live Later
(Jazz in Britain Records)
⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

“Gordon was one of the most fluent and dynamic British pianists I ever heard,” writes veteran drummer Spike Wells, and the album Pay Now, Live Later, recorded at the Bass Clef Club, Hoxton, east London, in September 1985, gives ample testimony to his words.

Brixtonian Gordon Beck (1935-2011) was one of the most undersung pianists of British jazz, except by those who knew and played with him. Just read the sleeve notes by bassist Dave Green, tenorist Iain Bellamy and Wells, for evidence of his brilliance.

Six of the seven album’s compositions are his. From the opener, Clusters, onwards, he plays with a ripe inventiveness and improvising flair, as if his imagination were inside his piano itself. Green and Wells anticipate and respond to his every note and saxophonists Bellamy and Australian Ray Warleigh never stray far from his blessed hands. A superb reminder of a neglected jazz soul.