H. Johnson pays tribute to the visually impaired, multitalented, wind instrumentalist Rashaan Roland Kirk

WABE’s H. Johnson has been a fixture on our station since 1978. As host of both “Blues Classics” and “Jazz Classics,” H. continually educates and entertains WABE listeners every Friday and Saturday night. Now, H. joins “City Lights” every other Friday to share a bit from his breadth of jazz knowledge. The segment, “H. Johnson’s Jazz Moment,” explores selections from the best of H.’s music collection, along with tidbits from history, personal reflections, and H.’s thoughts on the evergreen resonance of jazz. 

In this segment, Johnson paid tribute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, an artist who may not receive the remembrance consistently awarded to other household names of jazz like Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, but who’s perhaps as deserving. Johnson speaks his name sonorously: “I like to say it dramatically because when I think of him, that’s the way I think of him – dramatically.”

Blind from an early age and a by-ear player who never read sheet music, Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a polyglot of wind instruments. The adventuring virtuoso played saxophone, clarinet, and flute, and on occasion, literally played several horns at once. “I’ll say it again. He had three or four different horns in his mouth at the same time, and he’d be playing them all,” Johnson marveled. Often mistaken for a carnival act, Kirk defied easy categorization with fluency in jazz, blues, and pop, as well as classical music.