Saturday night at the Village Vanguard, with Roland on the stand, is something else; packed, screaming, cacophonic. When the room is filled to capacity you can sit on the stairs and listen for free, and sooner or later Roland, led by tambourine player Joe Texidor (a self-proclaimed toe freak) and flanked by trombonist Dick Griffin and maybe his friend the hot trumpet from Mississippi, Charles McGhee, will come marching up the stairs to his own just slightly kinky dixieland two-step and they will wail for your aural pleasure right there on Seventh Avenue, Roland will more than likely be dressed in a black vinyl jumpsuit and skullcap, an assortment of tiny instruments strung around his neck, and he might even whisper in your ear just the cosmic advice you were looking for between phrases on the clarinet before he descends once again into the basement club, where his rhythm section has been cooking along all the while.

Roland's Vanguard raps have become an institution; he will talk about anything from the beginnings of the music in New Orleans to the mythical exploits of characters like Li'l Liza Jane (not so plain this Jane) and Tongue Snatcher to the outrageous price of a brick of pot. Now at last the aural half of the experience, at least, is on record. Rahsaan Rahsaan, recorded for the most part at the Vanguard, features generous helpings of the Kirk rap, which is closer to the sayer of sooth than to the piano-bar entertainer, and some dynamite music as well. For the first time on one record, Roland touches many of his bases—from a New Orleans ensemble to a Duke Ellington extravaganza to a blues to Dvorak and through into the sounds of the cosmos, and it's a guided tour with the hippest guide this side of an undiscovered Lenny Bruce tape.

An added bonus on the first side is some fine work by three musicians who have perfected individual approaches to their instruments while remaining almost completely unrecorded. Violinist Leroy Jenkins, heard with the AACM group Creative Construction Company of Chicago (a monster band) practically steals the show with his exciting fiddling; he is easily the finest jazz violinist to come along since Eddie South, and that was a long time ago. But matching him in inspiration are Howard Johnson, who proves here that the tuba (yes, the tuba) has tremendous potential as a solo instrument with a swooping, overpowering outing; and standby Griffin, who has an a cappella trombone statement that manages to get some of Roland's multi-horn effects through just one mouthpiece; it sounds too good to be true, but I saw him do it at the Vanguard, and it wasn't Roland's tape recorder supplying the second and third parts.

Roland doesn't feature his own playing as much as in times past; to really get to that, check out previous albums like The Inflated Tear. What he does feature is a unified album that gives a very clear indication of just where he is at. Many people may want to know now because of Roland's part in the agitation to get black music on television, but what Roland has to say in his raps and his music is really timeless; he demands credit where credit is due, not just for his own innovations, but for the contributions to black art made by the great players of the past: Duke, Johnny Hodges, Bird, Dolphy, Coltrane, and all the rest. He makes it clear that the music of these men forms a body of music that is "classical" in any and every sense of the word, and proclaims: "Complete disruption for black classical musicians is until it happens right." It's happening right on Rahsaan Rahsaan. (RS 74)

BOB PALMER