Chapter 19 of Randy Poe’s Skydog: The Duane Allman Story is titled, “Mann & Allman.”
While referring to the popular jazz flutist and bandleader Herbie Mann, one assumes the title also works as a nod to Two for the Road, the 1977 album by Allman & Woman, featuring the then-married duo Gregg Allman and Cher. But we’ll leave that for another day.
Poe’s chapter begins with Duane’s rapidly deepening affection for jazz. By most accounts, the Allman Brothers Band founding co-drummer Jaimoe is credited with infusing the interests of the individual members and the sound of the band with the power of improvisational jams, although it’s clear the musicians were inclined in this direction in their own ways. Mentioned at the outset of the chapter are Miles Davis and John Coltrane, with specific references to Davis’ Seven Steps to Heaven, Trane’s Africa/Brass, and Emergency by Tony Williams’ Lifetime.
Jaimoe told Alan Paul that Duane’s favorite jazz tunes were Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” and Miles Davis’ “All Blues.” In the same oral history published as One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band, Gregg Allman speaks of his brother’s affinity for jazz guitarists, pointing out Howard Roberts, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow, and Kenny Burrell. In a variety of interviews, Duane and Dickey are quoted emphasizing the inspiration they drew from Kind of Blue, Miles Davis’ pathbreaking album from 1959, as reflected in the improvised solos (and dual leads) over a two-chord vamp in “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.”
Jaimoe’s record collection and his contribution to the rhythm section and Dickey Betts’ compositions and playing reflected the great extent to which the Allman Brothers Band was influenced by jazz. As time went on, the Allman Brothers Band continued to explore improvisational solos not only in instrumentals like “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” and “Mountain Jam” but in lyrical songs as well, as illustrated in live versions of “Dreams,” “Whipping Post,” and “You Don’t Love Me.” However, it was Duane Allman who actively sought to play and possibly record with the jazz cats he admired.
Increasingly, Duane wanted contact with both jazz musicians and audiences. Working on the Allman Brothers Band’s second LP, Idlewild South, brought Duane the opportunity to meet Joel Dorn, a legendary music producer whose work with Atlantic Records spanned decades and multiple hit records and accolades, both in jazz and jazzy crossovers with R&B. Tom Dowd produced most of the album, but was called away from the Idlewild South sessions, and he asked Dorn to fill in until he could return.
In an interview with Bob Putignano, Dorn told the story: “So, I get this call from Tommy Dowd that he can’t make a recording session with the Allman Brothers, and he asks me to fill in for him. Dowd proceeds to tell me, ‘Just watch those guys very closely, as they are pretty crazy and they may dose your drink with drugs.’ You have to understand that Dowd was a straight arrow, and I only occasionally saw him with a drink in his hand, and never any drugs. So, I told Tommy, ‘Really?’ And with a glazed eyed smile Dorn says, this won’t be a problem for me!
“Out of that adventure I got to produce one track ‘Please Call Home’ for the Allmans’ Idlewild South,” Dorn added. “I am proud to have had that experience with the Allmans, and afterwards Duane and I became running partners. Hanging out with Duane and King Curtis was wild. Man, we had great times together, and Duane wanted to record with a lot of jazz cats. Unfortunately, time ran out.”
In fact, there was time to try, and not without some success; just, not at first. Joel Dorn had in mind Fathead Newman or Hank Crawford as possible matches for Duane. Both Atlantic stars, their music represented “something where a great Southern blues guitarist would really fit,” as told in Randy Poe’s book. However, a surprise request came forth, which Dorn recreates for Poe, beginning with Duane: “‘Man, I would really like to make a record with Rahsaan.’ That was Rahsaan Roland Kirk. And that’s the last person in the world I’d think someone like Duane Allman would ask to make a record with, so it struck me as odd.’”
Odd, perhaps, but upon further reflection, Dorn decided to pursue the pairing of the Southern hippie guitarist and the Black, blind jazz multi-instrumentalist known for playing as many as three reed instruments at once.
Poe continues, quoting Dorn: “‘I actually went to Rahsaan,’ said Dorn. ‘He was as much a one-of-a-kind artist as ever existed. He was also a man of gigantic conviction and passions, so I thought Duane would be perfect. I went to him and said, ‘There’s this guy – you know about the Allmans?’ He said, ‘Oh, I know about the Allman Brothers.’ I said, ‘I’d like to do some sessions with you and Duane. I think you could really get something going.’ He took it as, ‘Oh, now you want to put me with those rock ‘n’ roll guys so I can make a hit. You’re not interested in my music.’ I said, ‘Nah, it’s different. This guy is special, man. He gets the joke. You really ought to ….’ But he wouldn’t do it. So, I went back and told Duane. I said, ‘I really tried, but you know Rahsaan.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I know, but it was worth trying.’”
More disappointment followed in July 1971, as the Newport Jazz Festival was called off after thousands of Allman Brothers Band fans penetrated the grounds without tickets, with havoc ensuing.
In an interview with Derek Trucks (nephew of Allman Brothers Band founder Butch Trucks) and his wife Susan Tedeschi, Newport Jazz Festival co-founder George Wein said he told Ahmet Ertegun that he wanted “a young white blues group that’s not well known.” Wein wanted to highlight the expanding influence of the blues, particularly among Southern whites.
The Allman Brothers Band was booked for a Newport show with Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. As Wein explains, the problem was that by the time July 1971 came around, the success of the Allman Brothers Band’s double live album At Fillmore East meant that they were now very well known. As Wein is quoted in another publication, “between January and July they became monsters.”
Thousands of young, ticket-less fans tore down fences and poured onto the festival grounds while Dionne Warwick sang “What the World Needs Now is Love.” The concert was canceled (and then actually moved away from Newport for some time), and Duane Allman’s dream of reaching a sophisticated jazz audience was again on hold.
His jazz ship finally came in when Herbie Mann heard Allman playing with Delaney & Bonnie from his apartment loft. The flutist joined in the jam, and soon Duane would be in the studio with his fellow Atlantic recording artist. The result was Herbie Mann’s Push Push, an album of jazzy renditions of popular songs by, as summarized by Poe, “Aretha, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, the Jackson 5, and even the soft-rock group Bread, so no one was going to mistake this LP for the work of Rahsaan Roland Kirk.”
Let’s circle back then to Kirk and explore, speculatively, on the possibilities of an Allman-Kirk jam session. Why not? Writing this amidst a pandemic, I note that researchers at Harvard and elsewhere are finding people to be having more vivid dreams during the current crisis. As the reader will see, dreams played key roles in lives and careers of both Kirk and Allman, so we might as well explore the notion of an unexpected musical Dream Team.
Born in 1936 as Ronald Theodore Kirk and victimized by medical malpractice, he was blind from the age of two. As he began his music career, he changed his first name, keeping the same letters but from then on he was Roland. It’s difficult to summarize Kirk in a short format, and fortunately there is a documentary on Kirk that was released in 2016, The Case of the Three Sided Dream. The title is taken from Kirk’s 1975 album, The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color.
Dreams were integral to Kirk’s character and artistry, and to how he made decisions in his brief life: He died at 42 in 1977 after suffering a stroke that did not stop him from learning to play sax with one hand and recording his final album, which included a beautiful “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” with Kirk adding lyrics to Charlie Mingus’ 1959 tribute to Lester Young.
Mingus called Kirk “my Frankenstein,” with much pride in having had Kirk in his Jazz Workshop. In his book Visions of Jazz, Gary Giddens writes: “Kirk was a piece of work on which Rabelais and Barnum might have collaborated.” Giddens goes on to highlight the significance of dreams to Kirk: “His dream life alone was apparently more invigorating than the waking lives of most mortals. In dreams came the name of his band, the Vibration Society, and his person, Rahsaan; in dreams came the shape of programmatic albums, for example, The Inflated Tear and The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color. Most important, a dream gave him the idea of playing three saxophones simultaneously.”
Kirk was 16 and a student at the Ohio School for the Blind when he awoke from the latter dream and began combining old and odd instruments such as the manzello and the stritch to his saxophone, then learned to play them in various combinations. He discovered an ancient technique known as circular breathing that allowed him to play a single note uninterrupted for extended periods of time. Video recordings of his live performances have to be seen for one to even begin to understand Rahsaan Roland Kirk, but those that dismissed him as a novelty act completely missed the innovation and talent of this force of nature.
What would make Duane take notice of Kirk, to the point of choosing Rahsaan as a potential musical ally? Kirk had been recording since the 1950s (and I highly recommend the four-disc set, Roland Kirk: Complete Recordings 1956-1962), and his early recordings were full of swinging blues numbers that Duane would have appreciated, but we do not know to which recordings Allman listened.
Reaching to the ethereal, we might consider that dreams were also important to Duane, as were “Dreams.” The latter, of course, is the slow composition of Gregg Allman’s included on Allman Brothers Band’s self-titled debut album. On the studio version, but especially in live versions such as the legendary, nearly 20 minute 1971 recording at Stonybrook, Duane’s solo sets the pace for his switch to mesmerizing slide lead guitar played in standard tuning (as opposed to an open tuning common for slide playing.) This is done over a 1-2-3, 1-2-3 waltz that Rahsaan Roland Kirk would have similarly improvised modalities with one, two, or three sax-type instruments.
Beyond the song “Dreams,” the power of dreams in Duane Allman’s biography is illustrated by one episode, rather than a lifetime as in Kirk’s case. But I think it likely that Kirk would have appreciated this story, in part because it involves Jimi Hendrix and in part because Duane made use of the dream.
Duane Allman’s only sole-credit composition to be recorded was “Little Martha,” a bright acoustic and dobro instrumental played by Duane and Dickey Betts. According to Scott Freeman in Midnight Riders, “The acoustic instrumental is the only song that Duane wrote by himself, and it came to him in a dream: He was in a room at some Holiday Inn with Jimi Hendrix, who was telling Duane about his new song; he walked over to a sink and, using the faucet as a guitar fret board, he began playing it for Duane. When Duane woke up, he picked up his acoustic guitar, tuned to open D for bottleneck, and recaptured the music that Jimi Hendrix had shown him in the dream.”
Hendrix, by the way, was infatuated with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, calling him “a stone-cold blues musician,” and there are reports that they played together in March 1969 at Ronnie Scott’s club in London. Can there be any doubt that Duane Allman and a “stone-cold blues musician,” would have found common ground?
Kirk moved to Atlantic in 1965, remaining there through 1976 while releasing about a dozen albums – including the earlier-mentioned Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color, which was a double album and yet with only three sides as the fourth was blank. This timeline overlaps with Duane’s Atlantic contract and Allman’s request to Dorn in 1970.
A more specific connection is that, again as Atlantic artists, Kirk and Allman each recorded with guitarist Cornell Dupree, who appears on Kirk sessions as well as on Herbie Mann’s Push Push with Allman on lead guitar. Then again, Cornell Dupree isn’t known as Mr. 2500 for nothing, having recorded with an amazing array of artists. So, the connection to Dupree was not a step toward playing with Rahsaan, and we do not know if Allman and Dupree talked about Duane’s idea.
In the end, it was not to be: A hoped-for Kirk- Allman session remaining a missed opportunity, and, of course, Duane’s fatal accident on Oct. 29, 1971 kept it that way. It’s good that Duane did not take Kirk’s rather gruff rejection personally. There is additional evidence that he was not enamored of rock musicians performing his work. For example, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull took up the flute after hearing Kirk, and included the latter’s “Serenade to a Cuckoo” on Tull’s debut album. It seems Kirk was not impressed with the Tull rockers either, reportedly telling an audience in 1971 they should “picket him [Anderson] the next time he comes around.”
In 1968, Atlantic released Kirk’s album Volunteered Slavery, and the title track became perhaps his best-known song. While Duane never got to perform with Kirk, the Derek Trucks Band covered “Volunteered Slavery” a generation later. Trucks, who like Duane is a virtuoso on slide guitar, included the tune on Songlines, released in 2006.
“The first time I heard Rahsaan was on that Atlantic compilation [1993’s Does Your House Have Lions],” Derek Trucks later said. “It felt much the same way those Hendrix records felt, that he was blowing the rules wide open and was just playing music. In my mind, it seemed that Rahsaan and Hendrix came from the same far-off planet – like superheroes.”
I had long considered a Miles Davis-Duane Allman partnering a Dream Team to fantasize about, and Miles’ work with guitarists such as John McLaughlin and Pete Cosey during the late 1960s and early 1970s makes the scenario not so far-fetched. In contrast, Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s guitarists were not featured with solos or prominent places in his recordings. Still, one wonders where Duane’s dreams were leading him. Unfortunately, as Joel Dorn reminded us, “time ran out.”
