Blacknuss

By the early '70s, the two musical forces that had propelled the late-'60s black liberation movement had diverged. Soul music had become more conventional and mainstream, while jazz had become more militant and atonal. With his 1971 opus Blacknuss, Roland Kirk sought to reaffirm the connections of these two genres. Though they often seemed at odds, deep soul and dark jazz shared a goal: freedom for African-Americans. An unwavering believer in both musical forms, Kirk reunited these conflicting strands at a crucial moment in history. His wild, deeply felt versions of Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye songs showed that danceable pop tunes were just as important to liberation theology as works by John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Never one to shy from audacious reinvention, Kirk’s gutsy envisioning of the Motown chestnut “My Girl” is perhaps the album’s defining moment, but the title song (a Kirk original) is its most unbridled musical statement.