Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith (2025 Remaster) (2026) [Hi-Res]

Roland Kirk was a glorious one-off. His live shows – often a curious blend of stand-up comedy, political preaching, and cutting-edge jazz – were legendary; so was his ability to play three saxophones simultaneously. But the man who brought chaos to The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971 is also the same man that produced the one-off Verve gem Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith. Capturing the multi-instrumentalist in a fairly orthodox jazz setting, Now Please Don’t You Cry remains one of the best examples of what straight-ahead Kirk sounded like.

Verve executive producer Creed Taylor was well aware of Kirk, and invited him to record a session for the label at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in April 1967. Among Kirk’s sidemen was former Jazz Messenger pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, former Sun Ra bassist Ronnie Boykins, and drummer Grady Tate, a stalwart of Verve sessions for Jimmy Smith, Kenny Burrell, and Wes Montgomery. The result, Now Please Don’t You Cry, was eclectic but relatively subdued, combining hard bop with pop, rhythm and blues, and Latin music.

The album mainly consisted of original material, ranging from “Blue Rol,” a slow, simmering late-night blues with a hint of Duke Ellington in its DNA, to the modal-flavored “Silverlization” and “Fall Out,” an infectious rhythm and blues romp highlighting Kirk’s growling sax. Although it began with shrill nose flute toots and Kirk shouting the title wildly, “Why Don’t They Know,” settles into a smooth bossa nova style groove. Arguably, the pick of Kirk’s self-penned material was the album’s title track, a beautiful emotive ballad spotlighting Kirk’s lyricism. Name-checking his second wife, Edith, it’s a sublime track with a sultry, after-hours ambiance.

But for many, the album’s standout track was Kirk’s interpretation of a contemporary pop song, Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s movie ballad, “Alfie.” His tenor saxophone playing was sublime; at the end, he sneaked in a quote from Sonny Rollins’ same-titled track before closing with a deft passage of three-horn harmonization.

Often overshadowed by his recordings for other labels, Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith is an underappreciated gem in Kirk’s extensive discography. It may not be as revolutionary as Ed Sullivan performance or as exploratory as The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color, but it’s a wonderful example of his prowess as a supremely gifted saxophonist and flutist. By turns playful and serious, joyous and doleful, Kirk’s only Verve album paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary man and musician whose talents knew no bounds.

"Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith (about Kirk's wife) was the first of his all groove sides. Out of ten tunes, Kirk composed eight, of the other two, only one was a recognizable jazz tune ("It's a Grand Night for Swinging" by Billy Taylor, who wrote the liner notes) and the other was a pop tune (Bacharach and David's "Alfie"). Unlike Rip, Rig, and Panic from two years earlier in 1965, this set featured an in-the-pocket rhythm section. Adventure was not the name of the game on this date, feeling was -- and for the job he got some of the finest cats working in the groove jazz idiom: drummer Grady Tate, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, and bassist Roland Boykins. The record opens with "Blue Rol," a standard blues made more beautiful by Kirk's playing three horns throughout except for his tenor solo and Smith's tough comping in the middle register. "Alfie" is another story. Kirk blows his tenor with the same tonal warmth Ben Webster did by reading the melody faithfully and tenderly adding fills with Smith, slipping around him for subtle accents, adding color and dimension even when he picks up the tempo, which is led by a steaming, hard-swinging Tate. The end of the album is very special as well, as the title track features the only outside playing on the disc, but it feels more like it's honking R&B shouting rather than vanguard invention as it gives way to the gorgeous Latin swing of the melody. Finally, on the Taylor tune, after a breathtaking arpeggio orgy on "Stompin' Grounds" between Kirk and Smith, the elegance of the musician shines through, as Kirk's flute sweeps through the rhythm section, carrying the cut-time number through a bop permutation or two before coming back to the blues in his solo. Smith's pianism here is so light, his touch so quick and fluid, Kirk can't help but cruise over the tune. This was the beginning of the exploration that led listeners to Blacknuss and Boogie Woogie String Along for Real, and it is worth every bit as those two recordings." (Thom Jurek, AMG)

Roland Kirk, tenor saxophone, manzello, stritch, flute
Lonnie Liston Smith, piano
Ronnie Boykins, bass
Grady Tate, drums

Recorded May 2, 1967 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Produced by Creed Taylor

Digitally remastered