I came across this box set earlier today and it brought back a flood of memories.
It's a collection of Rah's music that Joel Dorn issued posthumously on his indie record label, 32 jazz. It's a 3 cd set and the first two discs are from live performances. The third disc is Rahsaan's only solo album, "Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata"--a work that refuses to age and only gets better and better with each new listen. It deserves its own blog post, and as a matter of fact, I have been threatening to write an essay about it because I love it SO DARN MUCH.
But the beautiful flashback I had when I pulled this album off the shelf today has to do with the first track on the first album. It's called "Box Tops and Whistling Rings" and it's just a 19-second intro. for the music, but why it matters so much to me is that it's from an interview I did with one of Rah's childhood buddies.
I had recently flown back from Columbus to New Jersey (where I was living at the time), and went to the city one day to meet with Joel. I played him a section of the interview and he flipped for it and marched me back to his office (we were having lunch) so he could make a copy of it. It's a story about Rahsaan, as an 8 year old collecting the box tops off of cereal boxes so he could get the prize: a whistling ring.
His music was truly always with him.
Bright Moments always,
May
But the beautiful flashback I had when I pulled this album off the shelf today has to do with the first track on the first album. It's called "Box Tops and Whistling Rings" and it's just a 19-second intro. for the music, but why it matters so much to me is that it's from an interview I did with one of Rah's childhood buddies.
I had recently flown back from Columbus to New Jersey (where I was living at the time), and went to the city one day to meet with Joel. I played him a section of the interview and he flipped for it and marched me back to his office (we were having lunch) so he could make a copy of it. It's a story about Rahsaan, as an 8 year old collecting the box tops off of cereal boxes so he could get the prize: a whistling ring.
His music was truly always with him.
Bright Moments always,
May
