Rahsaan Roland Kirk playing three saxophones at once in Sound??, because that’s how he rolled…
 
In 1966 and 1967, British independent filmmaker Dick Fontaine put together a short film that perfectly captured a slice of the sonic avant garde. He blended captured footage of post-bop simultaneous multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk improvising live at Ronnie Scott’s with bits of experimental composer John Cage music on sound while strolling around various modern environments.

Fontaine intersperses Cage’s spontaneous yet brooding rhetorical questions about our interactions with the sonic world with Kirk’s more definite replies and performances, along with a quick cuts of a bunch of urban and acoustic settings. Cage asks “Why don’t they keep their mouths shut and their ears open?”, while Kirk hands out whistles to the audience and tells them to play in the key of W.

It’s a real treasure. No kissing, though. Oh well.