Randy Weston: Hi-Fly, Little Niles and Africa

More observant listeners are impressed with Randy’s strong, virile attack, his steady beat and his melodic imagination; both in improvising and composing he seemed to show the influence of Thelonious Monk.

- Leonard Feather, Jazz author and critic

“I expect that in the decade and more ahead, Randy will become as recognized for his compositions as for his playing.”

- Nat Hentoff, Jazz author and critic, writing in 1957

Weston's '50s recordings for Riverside (expertly supported by Cecil Payne), Dawn, Jubilee, Metro, and United Artists are among the most charmingly anomalous in the postbop era. His penchant for triple time, pentatonic melodies, and a shrewdly rhythmic piano attack, heavy on bass, was established before he went to Africa and developed further during the course of two tours of Lagos, Nigeria, in 1961 and 1963, and a 1966 state department visit to fourteen African countries. By 1969, he had settled in Morocco, living in Rabat and Tangier, where he operated the African Rhythms Club.

- Gary Giddins, Jazz author and critic

“You can have it. It’s not music that’s going to get any air time on my show.”

The speaker was a family friend who hosted a very successful AM radio program that primarily featured the music of popular singers like Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Vic Damone, Rosemary Clooney or Patti Page; singers who sang the commercial hits of the day as arranged by Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Henry Mancini and a whole host of other, orchestrators.

Given the sterling reputation of his radio show, many distributors sent him sample copies of long-playing records, today known as “vinyl,” many of which contained music that was superfluous to his program.

His offer of a gift had to do with an LP that I was holding in my hands with music by the Randy Weston Trio and the Lem Winchester Quartet that was recorded one afternoon [July 5^th] during the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.

Entitled New Faces at Newport,  the album was on the obscure Metro Jazz label [E1005].

I had no idea who [pianist] Weston or [vibraphonist] Winchester were, but hey, free is free, especially at a time in my life when popping $5 bucks for a Jazz record was still a lot of money.

I was familiar with the rhythm section of Ray Santisi on piano, John Neves on bass and Jimmy Zitano who accompanied Winchester from a Herb Pomeroy’s Boston-based big band LP that I had in my “collection” so I first played Lem’s side of the LP leaving the tracks by Weston for a later listen.

The time allotted to the four tracks by Randy on this album is largely taken up by a long drum solo by G.T. Hogan on an “excerpt” from Weston’s Bantu Suite. I didn’t find the remainder of that suite until many years later, but the title was a portent of things to come as Randy was to become a major exponent and interpreter of African music for much of his later career.

When I did get around to a close listening of the other tracks by Randy Weston on that Metro Jazz LP, what struck me – to the point of fascination – was Randy’s original composition Hi-Fly. Melodically, it is little more than a ditty based on a repetition of fifths, but I found myself whistling or humming it for days.

I was also taken by Weston’s minimalist approach to piano playing. He seemed to frame the tune with thoughtful improvisations much like Jimmy Rowles or Duke Jordan or John Lewis, but his style was somehow very distinctive.

As Dick Katz describes it in his essay on Jazz pianists from the 1940’s and 1950’s in Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz:

“Like Thelonious Monk’s, Randy Weston’s piano style defies outright imitation. He takes elements of Monk, Ellington, and a little Bud Powell, and ingeniously melds them with aspects of his own intense interest in African cultures, particularly those of Morocco, Tangier and Nigeria. His compositions, like Monk’s, are intrinsically bound to his playing style. In addition to many waltzes, his Little Niles, Hi-Fly and African Cookbook are justly well-known.”

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