The numerical sequence above is not some musical notation or call to introduce a tune, but refers to the August birthdates of three important reedmen born this month.

One of them Byard Lancaster, is no stranger to Jamaica, having led for many years the ‘Philly Invasion’ at the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival. The other two, Rashaan Roland Kirk and Benny Carter, are less well-known, but Kirk has been mentioned in this column before.

A comparatively lesser-known avant-gardist who has based much of his career in Philadelphia, Byard Lancaster, is an advanced improviser who is not shy to show the influence of blues and soul in his solos. He played with Sunny Murray, starting in 1965, and worked with Bill Dixon (1966-1967), Sun Ra (off and on between 1968-1971), and McCoy Tyner (1971-1977). Lancaster played for a bit with Memphis Slim in Paris, but has mostly performed jazz locally.

All of his own recordings were for obscure labels (including Vortex, Dogtown, Palm, Philly Jazz, and Bellows), but his 1966 ESP date with Sunny Murray has been reissued on CD. His recorded output also includes the discs Its Not Up To Us and The Outcry.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was born simply Ronald Kirk in Columbus, Ohio, but felt compelled by a dream to transpose two letters in his first name to make Roland. After another dream about 1970, he added Rahsaan to his name.

Preferring to lead his own groups, Kirk rarely performed as a sideman, though he did record with arranger Quincy Jones, Roy Haynes and had especially notable stints with Charles Mingus. He played the lead flute and solo on Jones’ Soul Bossa Nova associated with the Austin Powers film.

His playing was generally rooted in soul jazz or hard bop, but Kirk’s knowledge of jazz history allowed him to draw on many elements of the music’s history, from ragtime to Swing and free jazz. Kirk also regularly explored classical and pop music.

Kirk played and collected a number of musical instruments, mainly various saxophones, clarinets and flutes. His main instruments were tenor saxophone, and two obscure saxophones: the manzello (similar to a soprano sax) and the stritch (a straight alto sax lacking the instrument’s characteristic upturned bell). Kirk modified these instruments himself to accommodate his simultaneous playing technique. He typically appeared on stage with all three horns hanging around his neck, as well as a variety of other instruments, including flutes and whistles. Kirk also played harmonica, english horn, recorders and was a competent trumpeter.

He often had unique approaches, using a saxophone mouthpiece on a trumpet or playing nose flute. He additionally used many extramusical sounds in his art, such as alarm clocks, whistles, sirens, and even primitive electronic sounds (before such things became commonplace).

Kirk was also an influential flautist, employing several techniques that he developed himself. One technique was to sing or hum into the flute at the same time as playing. Another was to play the standard transverse flute at the same time as a nose flute.

Some observers thought that Kirk’s bizarre onstage appearance and simultaneous multi-instrumentalism were just gimmicks, especially when coming from a blind man, but these opinions usually vanished when Kirk actually started playing. He used the multiple horns to play true chords, essentially functioning as a one-man saxophone section. Kirk insisted that he was only trying to emulate the sounds he heard in his mind.

Kirk was also a major exponent and practitioner of circular breathing. Circular breathing is when a wind player exhales through the horn’s mouthpiece while simultaneously inhaling through the nose. Using this technique, Kirk was not only able to sustain a single note for a virtually any length of time, he could also play sixteenth-note runs of almost unlimited length, and at high speeds.

In 1975, Kirk suffered a major cerebral vascular accident (stroke) which led to partial paralysis of one side of his body. Despite this, he continued to perform, modifying his instruments himself to enable him to play with only one arm. At a live performance at Ronnie Scott’s club in London, he even managed to play two instruments, and carried on to tour internationally and even appeared on TV.

He died from a second stroke in 1977 after performing at the Bluebird nightclub in Bloomington, Indiana.

Benny Carter has been as admired as virtually any saxophonist in jazz. As a trumpeter, although he only occasionally played the instrument, he achieved a rich tone and had a highly personal and original style. He will forever be remembered as much for his composing skills as his playing. His compositions, which include When Lights Are Low (1936) and Blues in My Heart (1931), became jazz and big band standards.

While mainly a self-taught musician, Carter came from a musical family and at 10 years studied piano with his mother and sister before receiving lessons from a private teacher for a year. In his early teens, he turned to the trumpet but soon grew impatient and switched to saxophone.

His early influences included the growl style trumpeter Bubber Miley and a cousin, trumpeter Cuban Bennett. Carter went to Wilberforce University to study theology, but instead left to play with Horace Henderson’s Wilberforce Collegians. Carter worked briefly with Duke Ellington in the 1920s and in 1928 made his recording and arranging debut as a member of Charlie Johnson’s Orchestra.

With no formal music education, he taught himself to arrange music on two of the orchestra’s recordings, Charleston Is the Best Dance After All and Easy Money. Later that year, he joined Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra and assumed arrangement duties. Other early affiliations included the bands of Chick Webb (1931), the Chocolate Dandies and McKinney’s Cotton Pickers.

By 1932 Carter, already greatly respected by fellow Jazzmen and now composing as well as playing and arranging, was able to launch his own band, which he kept together intermittently for the next couple of years. This early Carter aggregation disbanded in 1934, largely due to financial reasons. Important soloists in his regular band included Chu Berry, Sid Catlett and Teddy Wilson among others.

Carter also organised an all-star band for visiting British composer-critic Spike Hughes. It was a European connection that would soon mean much as Carter left the US for France, ending up in England as a staff arranger for Henry Hall’s BBC house radio band in 1936. Prior to leaving the US however Carter made some memorable contributions as a sideman in Willie Bryant’s band playing trumpet.

Benny Carter left the US for Paris in 1935 to join the Willie Lewis band on trumpet and alto before moving to England at the urgings of Leonard Feather to take the aforementioned BBC arranging job. Unfortunately, during this period Carter was only able to record as an instrumentalist sparingly due to musician union rules.

In the summer of 1937, he played a season at a Dutch seaside resort leading a big interracial and international band, the first successful unit of its kind in jazz history. Before returning to the US in 1938, he also spent time in Scandinavia and France, recording with Coleman Hawkins, Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grapelly and other American and European Jazzmen.

Carter nearly missed the Swing Era in the US returning to New York amid much fanfare from Down Beat magazine in 1938. He soon re-formed a big band in which sidemen from time to time included Vic Dickenson, Eddie Heywood, Jonah Jones and Tyree Glenn. Carter also found work as soloist, composer and arranger on a number of Lionel Hampton all-star sides for Bluebird in the late 1930s.

Among the gems recorded with Hampton were two Carter originals – When Lights Are Low with Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet and a star-studded tenor section of Chu Berry, Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster (1939) – and a flag waver called I’m In The Mood For Swing that featured trumpet licks from Harry James along with Benny’s alto saxophone (1938).

Benny Carter’s successful film scoring career got off to a good start in 1943 when he arranged the music for Busby Berkeley’s The Gangs All Here as well as Stormy Weather, an all-black musical. In 1944, he appeared in MGM’s Thousands Cheer with Lena Horne. He went on to arrange music for An American in Paris, (1951) The Guns of Navarone, (1961) and was also seen and heard in other films like The Snow Of Kilimanjaro, (1952) and The View From Pompey’s Head. (1955) Other film assignments included The Five Pennies and The Gene Krupa Story both in 1959. Benny Carter composed and arranged music for 20 television series, including M Squad, (1957-60) Ironside, (1967-75) The Name of the Game (1968-71) and It Takes a Thief (1968-70).

His success as one of the first black musicians to break into the lucrative film scoring market and eventually to be credited for his work, opened the door for others.

Carter continued to play and record in the 1950s. In the early ’50s he switched to the Verve record label and toured with the Norman Granz travelling jazz show called Jazz At The Philharmonic. It was while affiliated with the Verve label in the 1950s that he was recorded with the Oscar Peterson Trio, Ben Webster, Art Tatum, Roy Eldridge, Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday and others.

Benny Carter visited Australia in 1960 with his own quartet, performed at the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival with Dizzy Gillespie, and recorded with a Scandinavian band in Switzerland the same year.

Even into the 1970s and 1980s, Carter still had his chops; guest appearances took him to Europe, Japan, and the Near East during both decades. He was recorded in Montreux with Roy Eldridge, Clark Terry, Zoot Simms, Joe Pass and others in 1975. He recorded The King with Milt Jackson; Carter Gillespie Inc. with Dizzy Gillespie; Wonderland with another excellent small group, all in 1976.