All Quiet on the Weston Front

Randy Weston - African Cookbook

Randy Weston - Congolese Children

You know that CD you have because you borrowed it from someone six or seven years ago and then stopped hanging out with them so much? This is one of those CDs. (If you're reading this, you know who you are. E-mail me and we'll hang out and I'll give you your Randy Weston back.)

Brooklyn-born Randy Weston was an occasional student of Thelonious Monk's, which shows in their (very) slightly similar style. And like a lot of black folks--especially black artists--in the 60s, Weston developed a great hunger to develop a rootsier identity and heritage for America's diasporic Africans, and started introducing overtly African and Caribbean colors into his playing. In the early part of the decade, he traveled to Africa for the first time, making two extended trips to Nigeria; shortly after returning from the second, he recorded this wonderful but obscure album. Well, obscure at the time. In 1964, he somehow could interest no serious record company in it, and it was only released by the tiny Bakton label (whoever they are, I've never heard of them). It didn't see wider release until eight years later, when it was reissued by Atlantic.

It's hard to say why no one wanted to put it out at the time of its creation. It's not like jazz with an African flavor was a bizarre animal by that point, and it's not 'difficult' music (in the sense that some people argue Albert Ayler is 'difficult'). In fact, these songs are played with humor and intensity, and are all hugely accessible (the short, joyous "Congolese Children" in particular). So...fluke of fate? Who knows.

Randy Weston - piano
Ray Copeland - trumpet
Booker Ervin - tenor sax
Vishnu Wood - bass
Lenny McBrowne - drums
Big Black - vocals on "Congolese Children"