Kirk's Work

{{Infobox album

| name = Kirk's Work

| type = studio

| artist = Roland Kirk

| cover = Kirks work cover 250px.jpg

| alt =

| released = 1961

| recorded = July 11, 1961

| venue =

| studio = Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

| genre = Jazz

| length = {{Duration|m=33|s=02}}

| label = Prestige

| producer = Esmond Edwards (supervision)

| prev_title = Introducing Roland Kirk

| prev_year = 1960

| next_title = We Free Kings

| next_year = 1962

}}

Kirk's Work (also reissued as Funk Underneath) is an album by Roland Kirk, with Jack McDuff. Prestige Records released the album in 1961, with Original Jazz Classics{{cite book|last = Cook|first = Richard|author-link = Richard Cook (journalist)|author2=Brian Morton |authorlink2=Brian Morton (Scottish writer) |title = The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings|orig-date = 1992|edition = 9th|series = The Penguin Guide to Jazz|year = 2008|publisher = Penguin|location = New York|isbn = 978-0-14-103401-0|page = 827}} and Concord Music Group issuing subsequent re-releases.

Rudy Van Gelder engineered the recording on July 11, 1961 at Van Gelder Studio (in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey), while Esmond Edwards supervised the session. Van Gelder remastered the recording for the Concord 2007 re-release.

Critical reception

{{Music ratings

| rev2 = The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings

| rev2Score = {{Rating|3|3}}({{Rating|1|1}})

|rev3 = The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide

| rev3Score = {{rating|4|5}}{{Cite book

|editor-last=Swenson

|editor-first=J.

| author-link =

| year = 1985

| title = The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide

| publisher = Random House/Rolling Stone

| location = USA

| isbn = 0-394-72643-X

| pages = 119

}}

| rev1 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music

| rev1Score = {{Rating|4|5}}{{cite book|last=Larkin|first=Colin|author-link=Colin Larkin|title=The Encyclopedia of Popular Music|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|edition=4th|isbn=978-0195313734|title-link=Encyclopedia of Popular Music}}

}}

The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings describes Kirk's Work as "a largely forgotten Kirk album, but one which generally deserves the classic reissue billing." Ron Wynn has described the album as "a fine reissue of Kirk in a soul-jazz and mainstream vein."{{Citation | last =Wynn | first =Ron | author-link =Ron Wynn | editor =Ron Wynn | editor-link =Ron Wynn | others =M. Erlewine, V. Bogdanov | year =1994 | title =All Music Guide to Jazz | place =San Francisco | publisher =Miller Freeman | page =[https://archive.org/details/allmusicguidetoj00wynn/page/404 404] | isbn =0-87930-308-5 }} AllMusic notes a "swinging R&B vibe pervasive throughout the album," judging that "while certainly not the best in his catalog, it is a touchstone album that captures the early soulful Rahsaan Roland Kirk."{{AllMusic |class=album |id=r69384 |first=Lindsay |last=Planer |accessdate=February 11, 2011 }}