Arguably one of the most exciting saxophone soloists in jazz history, Kirk was a post-modernist before that term even existed. Kirk played the continuum of jazz tradition as an instrument unto itself; he felt little compunction about mixing and matching elements from the music's history, and his concoctions usually seemed natural, if not inevitable. Third Dimension was the debut album by jazz multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk originally released as Triple Threat on the King label in 1956. The original album received limited distribution and only became widely known after it was rereleased a few years prior to Kirk's death. The album features the first recorded examples of Kirk's trademark playing of multiple wind instruments at the same time as well as two tracks ("Stormy Weather" and "The Nearness of You") where he overdubbed manzello and tenor saxophone. Kirk would later state that the album "was about the third overdub record in black classical music".