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Rahssan Roland Kirk on The Ed Sullivan show.


Hardbopjazz

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  • 2 weeks later...

That is so cool. 

I'm actually a bit too young to have many memories of Ed Sullivan, but I'm well aware of the wealth of great musical talent that appeared on the show (the clips of rock artists continue to pop up everywhere).  Apparently he was generous to jazz artists.  Duke and Satchmo would be one thing--but Kirk, Mingus, Shepp, and Haynes?  Good lord.

Then you had every musician identified, even the man playing tambourine!

What an experience is must have been to see Roland Kirk in person.

 

 

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On 7/20/2019 at 11:24 AM, Milestones said:

That is so cool. 

I'm actually a bit too young to have many memories of Ed Sullivan, but I'm well aware of the wealth of great musical talent that appeared on the show (the clips of rock artists continue to pop up everywhere).  Apparently he was generous to jazz artists.  Duke and Satchmo would be one thing--but Kirk, Mingus, Shepp, and Haynes?  Good lord.

Then you had every musician identified, even the man playing tambourine!

What an experience is must have been to see Roland Kirk in person.

 

 

Your perception is not really correct. The show was 99.999% Topo Gigio (an annoying puppet), a guy spinning mulitiple plates on sticks, Nancy Sinatra singing These Boots Are Made For Walking, etc. This clip is the incredibly rare exception, resulting from the network being picketed and succumbing to pressure.

Edited by kh1958
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On 7/21/2019 at 11:30 AM, kh1958 said:

Your perception is not really correct. The show was 99.999% Topo Gigio (an annoying puppet), a guy spinning mulitiple plates on sticks, Nancy Sinatra singing These Boots Are Made For Walking, etc.

This is at once accurate and not accurate...it was an amazingly broad look at a relatively narrow spectrum of global culture...the comedians, oh my god the comedians...and the acrobats/jugglers/etc...you don't see that shit today (for better and/or worse)...it was one of the last links to the concept of vaudeville, a true variety show, you show up at a theater and you get get an evening's worth of entertainment by a variety of acts doing a variety of things. You can't make that kind of show now for the general market, because that type of general market no longer exists, just like with the old AM Top 40, Sinatra, Hendix, Johnny Cash, and Aretha all together, totally absent any hipster irony and/or etc.

But yes, this segment was more or less done under duress, The Jazz & People's Movement, they got Sullivan's org to play ball because they didn't want his show to be disrupted like some other shows already had been disrupted, I think Merv griffin was one of them, the guys would just show up at a taping and start going for it right there, shut that shit down and make their demands. Now THAT'S something I'd like to see footage of!

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