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Jazz Articles about Randy Weston

About Randy Weston

157

Album Review

Randy Weston African Rhythms Quintet: Spirit! The Power of Music

Read "Spirit! The Power of Music" reviewed by Todd S. Jenkins

by Todd S. Jenkins
June 25, 2003

Ever since Ornette Coleman and journalist Robert Palmer ventured to Joujouka in the late 1970s, traditional Moroccan musicians have had sporadic, generally fruitful meetings with American jazzmen. Many of those projects -- Coleman’s Dancing In Your Head and Pharoah Sanders’ Trance of the Seven Colors come straight to mind -- have leaned heavily towards the traditional instruments, with the jazzmen rather floating above it all. Weston has crafted something closer to his usual brand of Africa-deep jazz and made room ...

774

Interview

A Fireside Chat with Randy Weston

by AAJ Staff
May 16, 2003

In my youth, a television news magazine aired a feature on how the map of the world we, as kids, were taught in school was in fact, biased. In reality, Europe and America are not nearly as vast as they seem in the Thomas Guide and Africa and Asia, not nearly as insignificant. South Africa, for instance, is nearly twice the size of Texas and has a stock exchange that is among the largest in the world. But South Africa, ...

348

Album Review

Randy Weston: African Rhythms

Read "African Rhythms" reviewed by AAJ Staff

by AAJ Staff
January 11, 2003

While most talented jazz players continue to evolve, very few enter into a revolution. That's what happened four decades ago with Randy Weston. Weston (b. 1926) made a series of recordings in the '50s, including a streak of early bop records on Riverside. His early association with Thelonious Monk obviously shaped his musical vocabulary, as did his tenure with Cecil Payne and Kenny Dorham. But it was in the next decade that Weston developed one of the most distinctive voices ...

169

Album Review

Randy Weston: Ancient Future

by AAJ Staff
September 10, 2002

Randy Weston is a Brooklyn born pianist, with Caribbean and African influences, as suits this scholar with earthy roots. His earliest recordings on Riverside date from the mid-'50s, and his fingers have since taken him around the world. He's appeared on as many labels as one can label the man himself, yet there is a constant: a continual searching for depth. Although Weston has used every grouping from trio to jazz orchestra (arranged by the late Melba Liston) to traditional ...

186

Album Review

Randy Weston: Solo, Duo & Trio

by Derek Taylor
November 1, 2000

Randy Weston continues to be a vibrant and creative force in jazz, so much so that it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s been at it for over five decades. While his early work often isn’t as readily available as the material he’s done more recently much of it slowly making it back into print. This disc from Prestige combines some of Weston’s first recordings into a single, convenient package and well worth investigating. While there is audible tape hiss ...

119

Album Review

T.K. Blue: Another Blue

Read "Another Blue" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 1, 1999

Here’s a generous helping of flavorsome post–bop Jazz deliciously home–cooked by T. K. Blue (also known as Talib Kibwe, and as a conspicuously talented woodwind player, often with Randy Weston’s Spirit of Life Orchestra) and his enterprising companions. Group sizes range from duo to sextet with Blue (alto) and Weston duetting wonderfully on Dizzy’s “Night in Tunisia” and trumpet master Eddie Henderson augmenting Blue’s quartet on the impulsive finale, Miles Davis’ “Solar.” Blue plays alto on seven tracks, soprano on ...

154

Album Review

T.K. Blue: Another Blue

Read "Another Blue" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 1, 1999

For the past ten years T. K. Blue, also known as Talib Kibwe, has been sideman extrodinaire for Randy Weston’s Spirit of Life Orchestra. Like Billy Pierce to Tony Williams, or Paul Desmond to Dave Brubeck, Blue added depth and soul to the group without stepping out into the limelight. Born in New York to a Trinidadian mother and a Jamaican father, the saxophonist who doubles on flute graduated from NYU and New York’s Jazzmobile to play with Abdullah Ibrahim ...