And it's probably this event that sent him down a path toward the remarkable ability that would come to define the Kirk legend, according to biographer John Kruth.

The story of how he really gets into the multi-instrumental approach, I think, comes from his incredible sense of hearing and his inquisitive mind in that he, um, would hear Basie or Duke on the radio.

And nobody told him that there were, like, you know, 16 members of that band.

Nobody explained to him that you didn't take a saxophone in the left hand and a saxophone in the right hand and put them both in the same mouth and start playing like a piano.

[saxophone music] And, um, he started playing with that.

And supposedly Mr. Getz, who owned the, uh, junk shop in Columbus, the story was that he went over there looking for a horn that he had down in his basement because it had a particular sound.

This became his Manzello.

Can you give us some other stories about that?

No warning.

No warning.

Overnight.

And, you know, they would play like Pharaoh Sanders' Astral Traveling, and you heard just the hippest stuff on that station.

And I am driving in New Jersey into the Lincoln Tunnel, and I'm hearing this rap, this unbelievable rap.

It's Rasan, and he's giving the Bright Moments rap, and it's just... kind of blowing my mind and i pay my toll and i pull over and i'm sitting there i'm just totally stunned by the what he's how he's just he's you know he's he's he's like a poet he's like a preacher he's like a comedian he's hilarious yeah and i'm listening to this and i pull over and this cop comes over and knocks on the window move it And I'm going, wait, there's something on the radio I got to hear.

He goes, move it.

You got two more minutes to wrap it up.