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Raashan Roland Kirk (1935-1977) John Cage and Raashan Roland Kirk - Sound?? 1966 Although Rahsaan Roland Kirk and John Cage never actually meet in this film (Cage's enigmatic questions about sound are intercut with some of Kirk's more ambitious experiments with it) these two very different musical iconoclasts share a similar vision of the boundless possibilities of music. Kirk plays three saxes at once, switches to flute, incorporates tapes of birds played backwards, and finally hands out whistles to his audience and encourages them to accompany him, "in the key of W, if you please." Cage, on the other hand, is preparing a work for musical bicycle with David Tudor and Merce Cunningham at the Seville Theatre in London. Cage meets Rahsaan's music in an echo chamber, and he ends his search for the sound of silence in his favorite spot -- the anechoic chamber -- where it turns out to be the uproar of "your nervous system in operation." -- Martin Williams, JAZZ TIMES RESOURCES: Raashan Roland Kirk: Wikipedia Entry Many of these films are extraordinarily large and should be downloaded rather than streamed. The following films are presented for educational and non-commercial use only. More here... Mac Users: You'll need the VLC Player to view .avi files. UbuWeb Film | UbuWeb PennSound | GreyLodge | Artmob | EPC | WFMU