By John Kruth
“People were playing shells before there was written language. It goes way back to ancient times. It’s the roots of brass!” Steve Turre exclaimed. “Nobody knows what it sounded like. There’s no written notation or recordings available. The Spanish conquistadors destroyed the culture so we can only guess.”
Turre’s first exposure to the conch shell as a musical instrument came as a teenager
when he sat in with Rahsaan Roland Kirk and the Vibration Society at the Both/And Club in San Francisco. Kirk, a master multi-instrumentalist, was famous for playing three saxophones simultaneously, along with flute, clarinet, and whatever else he could get his hands on. At any given time during a gig, Rahsaan’s music could abruptly spiral into a wild free-for-all, where anything could and did happen.
“He’d blow the shell and then hit the gong,” Turre recalled with a big grin. “The sound of the shell did something to me. It made me tingle.”
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