Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Monkey Thing
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Mood Indigo/Cabin In The Sky
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Narrow Bolero

As is our tradition, on this day, August 7th, we always highlight the music of our patron saint at Melting Pot, Rahsaan Roland Kirk. More than any other place, it was in live performance that Rahsaan’s talents really shined. This set was recorded live at the Club Monmartre in Copenhagen in October 1963. This was still fairly early on in Rahsaan’s career (he didn’t take on the name “Rahsaan,” until 1970), roughly his sixth album as a leader and the very first (to my knowledge) that featured a live performance. Though it isn’t as freewheeling as the later Vibration Society recordings, such as Bright Moments, there are still a few moments where Rahsaan’s sense of humor and personality comes through (peep the opening to Mood Indigo where he name checks the horn section, which of course is all him).

Aside from the playing from Rahsaan, what really makes this an interesting set is the fact that legendary Bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson sat in with the group (which also featured Tete Montoliu and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen). He’s credited on the album as “Big Skol,” which was likely connected to contractual issues. I’ve never read much on how Sonny Boy came to be on this album, and I would love the story of how he come came to be there that night and I would absolutely LOVE to hear what he thought of Rahsaan playing all those horns at once, and even playing the flute with his nose. “Monkey Thing,” is classic Rahsaan, outrageous in every sense of the word, having Sonny Boy’s harp on there just takes the Blues swagger up a major notch…Bright Moments indeed!

Mike Ricciardella and Dick Dowling – Drum Solo + Narration
Mike Ricciardella and Dick Dowling – New Rhythm Patterns
Mike Ricciardella and Dick Dowling – Bass Drum and Hi-Hat
Mike Ricciardella and Dick Dowling – Rock Group Featuring Solo Drummer

For the first Dig Deep of Melting Pot’s (unbelievable to me at least) 10th year of sharing music, I wanted to come strong and hard with it and thus, you have this heavy duty break record. For a number of Hip-Hop DJs/Turntablists, instructional records are a goldmine, because they tend to have great narration that is almost tailor-made to be cut up and played around with. In terms of the music itself, a lot of times, I find instructional LPs to not be all that fulfilling. This record is not one of those records, as it’s basically just wall to wall clean, open, and heavy drum breaks from start to finish.

The name Mike Ricciardella seemed sort of familiar to me, but it wasn’t I was getting this post together that I realized that he was the drummer in the rock band The Illusion, whose song “Did You See Her Eyes,” has a really solid, quick paced clean drum break on it (in addition to a Sly & the Family Stone inspired breakdown just after).

While these tracks are my favorites from the record, again, the whole thing is basically just one big open drum break. When I saw this at the most recent Boston Bob Rappcats pop-up, I didn’t hesitate for a second to get it. Growing up with Hip-Hop and having Hip-Hop ears, I love how things like this, that were only created to facilitate the learning process of “live” musicians as they were coming up, takes on an entirely differently life in the hands of creative contemporary producers. For those who dig these sounds, this is definitely one you want to put on your radar and track down when you get the chance.

Frankie Kao – A Girl’s Dimples
Frankie Kao – Fallen Leaves
Frankie Kao – I Am A Cloud

This was a record that I was sure I would have posted almost immediately when I first picked it up from Avalon Vintage in Highland Park. Better late than never, and so when Subsuelo member DJ Gazoo recently asked me about this album, it made sense to get it up here at the tail end of Year Nine. I mean, we say don’t judge a book by its cover, but there was no way a record with a cover that amazing, with a singer that demonstrative was not gonna be dope. I honestly don’t know much about Frankie Kao aka Kao Ling Feng (sometimes also spelled Gao Ling Feng), but from the little I’ve dug up, he was a Taiwanese singer (who fairly recently passed away in 2014) with a solid following. Solid enough for the record to include this gigantic and rather awesome poster of Kao, chilling with a hang-glider.

This album appears to be from around 1977, give or take a year to two, just based off of catalog numbers for the Kolin record label. It’s got a sound that’s all over the place, (including a fairly faithful cover of “Jailhouse Rock,”) but the standout is the lead track and title track, “A Girl’s Dimples.” The opening break might not be up to snuff of Hip-Hop production standards, but it has a nice, sorta “Honky-Tonk Girl’s” kind of sound to it. I’ve dropped the needle on this at Funky Sole a couple of times and it is definitely a crowd-pleaser and draws a lot of puzzled looks, mostly because of how reasonably rare it is to hear Manadrin on the dance floor. As I don’t speak this dialect, I have to rely on the powers of Google Translate for the song titles and if anyone has more to add, I’d love to know more about Frankie Kao.