Randy Weston's African Rhythms - African Village/Bedford-Stuyvesant
The April showers of sound power commence this Monday with the centennial of one of the utmost heroic figures in the annals of not just Jazz, but of American Music as a whole.
It blows my barely-functional mind that he isn't a more renowned or celebrated figure, given that his music and what he transmitted in his teaching form a pillar of the basis of the connection between Africa -- motherland to African-American music -- and Jazz itself.
It all started when he came back to his native Brooklyn from serving in WWII and heard all the titans, like Coleman Hawkins and Thelonious Monk, laying it down on 52nd Street in NYC.
Fleeing the drug culture surrounding the music, he decamped to the Berkshires in Massachusetts and became involved with the Lenox Inn, then a sort of salon hub of luminaries of Black culture like Geoffrey Holder & Langston Hughes.
It was there that he began, under the influence of the people around him, to forge the ideas about the roots of Jazz being firmly in Africa that would become his life's work.
His first LP as a leader came out in 1954, and as the Sixties revolution began he started to heavily integrate indigenous African elements into his music.
Traveling to Lagos, Nigeria for two years as part of a cultural exchange program, he spent the middle part of the decade in the thick of the African experience as both educator and student.
Eventually he ended up in Morocco, settling in Tangier and running a music venue from 1967 to 1972, when he was conscripted by producer Creed Taylor to record for CTI.
Although he professed to dislike playing the electric keyboards prominent on the record, it became a huge smash hit, providing him with one of his signature tunes in the title track, Blue Moses.
The 1970s found him touring Africa more extensively, and he began to prolifically record for smaller, independent labels as the Eighties began.
He went on to tour, record and teach by example into his 90s, eventually passing away in 2018.
Speaking of Nineties, it was early in that decade that he got really into his African Rhythms project, which he would return to periodically for the rest of his career.
What makes this phase of our birthday guy's repertoire so unique and fascinating is that it strips away the usual biddly-biddly-boom-bish-bish trap drums we're all used to hearing in Jazz, and replaces them with three native Morrocan percussionists.
The result is so sumptuous and sonically involving, I had originally set out to share just one of these performances of this ensemble, but when I finished the first I was so into it I just went ahead and did the other one too.
There's not much else that can be said, other than it doesn't get any higher and more spiritually authentic and moving for me than the music of Randy Weston, born this day in 1926.
Randy Weston's African Rhythms + Gnaouas Tangeri
Adrian Boult Hall
Birmingham, UK
England
2.20.1993
01 Blue Moses
02 unidentified traditional Tangieri song
03 African Cookbook
04 Nite In M'Bari
05 Hi-Fly
06 The Healers
07 Chava Bhati
08 African Sunrise
09 La La Amira
10 African Village/Bedford-Stuyvesant
Total time: 2:06:19
disc break goes after Track 03
Randy Weston - piano
Benny Powell - trombone
Talib Kibwe - soprano & alto saxophones & flute
Stafford James - bass
Neil Clarke - percussion
plus the Gnaoua (Gnawa) Musicians of Morocco:
Abdellah el Gourd - hajouj, guinbri & vocals
Abdelouahid Barrady - karkabas, shkashek & vocals
Abdenebi Mustafa Oubella - tamboura & shkashek
PsyKies' 1st gen VHS off-air FM capture of the original BBC3 broadcast
edited, retracked & remastered by EN, April 2026
776 MB FLAC/link is below
776 MB FLAC/link is below
Randy Weston African Rhythms + Gnaouas Tangeri
"Viva Africa"
Willisau Jazz Festival
Festhalle
Willisau, Switzerland
9.4.1994
01 African Village/Bedford-Stuyvesant
02 Blue Moses/Sidi Moussa
03 Azid El Mal
04 African Sunrise
05 Niger Mambo
06 unidentified traditional Tangieri song
07 Little Niles
08 African Cookbook
09 La La Amira
Total time: 2:16:56
disc break goes after Track 05
Tracks 07-09 are bonus cuts from “The Spirit of Africa” Berlin Jazzfest @ Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin DE 11.16.1994
Randy Weston - piano
Talib Kibwe - alto & soprano saxophones & flute
Stafford James - bass (Tracks 01-06)
Neil Clarke - percussion
Benny Powell - trombone (Tracks 07-09)
Alex Blake - bass (Tracks 07-09)
plus the Gnaoua (Gnawa) Musicians of Morocco:
Abdellah el Gourd - hajouj, guinbri & vocals
Abdelouahid Barrady - karkabas, shkashek & vocals
Abdenebi Mustafa Oubella - tamboura & shkashek
Tracks 01-06: 1st gen soundboard capture, lossless to 21 kHz in the spectral analysis
Tracks 07-09: digital capture of a 320/48k digital WDR 3-FM broadcast, lossless past 22 kHz in the spectral analysis
all edited, retracked, denoised, repaired & remastered for unity by EN, April 2026
843 MB FLAC/direct link to both shows in the same folder
843 MB FLAC/direct link to both shows in the same folder
I'll be back in one week with yet more milestone goodness, because I know you're tired of being alone.
And of course I wouldn't be here today typing this if not for the milestone life of Randy Weston, who'd have been the centenary 100 today and deserves a lot more accolades than he seems to get for his vital contributions to the music of the Earth, if you ask me!--J.
4.6.1926 - 9.1.2018