Entertainment Weekly has alerted me that thirteen.org is providing episodes of their 1968-1973 black variety hour, Soul!, online. Mostly comprised of musical performances, the show also showcased a wide range of black entertainment, from poets to political figures (Louis Farakhan, Jesse Jackson). Of the six shows currently online, the most cohesive is the Tito Puente and Willie Colon episode, whose performances are nicely framed with a variety of vignettes (free-form raps, poems, even documentary clips).
I can’t wait to see more of the artists of this era that explored the intersections of psychedelia, jazz, and soul. Current highlights include Earth, Wind, and Fire in their heydey, and Rahassan Roland Kirk, who often plays multiple saxophones at once. My favorite number is one in which Kirk, with his Vibration Society starts off with an gorgeous Ray Charles-style ballad and climaxes in a free-form jazz explosion while Kirk destroys a metal chair. Somewhere in there he madly blows his whistle, bangs his gong and plays the conch.
