Randy Weston: A Giant of Jazz, a Giant of a Man
Posted: 12/02/2015 1:14 pm
Updated: 12/02/2015 1:59 pm
Jazz is, like the Blues, one of the music genres that is purely and genetically Classical American music in the sense of "classical" denoting "of a form regarded as representing an exemplary standard, traditional and long-established in form or style". Jazz is pure American music. Its creators are Africans who were brought to the Americas so that Jazz's umbilical cord and its genesis are fused with while, at the same time, being parallel to the history of African people in America, "African-Americans" in today's parlance.
One way we get knowledge of Jazz's history and its contributions to our American culture and memory is through the series as those presented by public television such as the Public Broadcasting System. One of these Jazz monuments to our common memory is "Jazz, A History of America's Music" by Ken Burns.
One of the still standing giants of this music genre is Randy Weston, a very active and living legend at 89 years old, a giant of Jazz and also a giant of a man (almost 8 feet tall). Everything about Randy is giant, huge (including a booming voice and laughter) that, as the late Jazz critic Stanley Crouch wrote, "Weston has the biggest sound of any jazz pianist since Ellington and Monk, as well as the richest most inventive beat..." Langston Hughes commented: "When Randy Weston plays, a combination of strength and gentleness virility and velvet emerges from the keys in an ebb and flow of sound seemingly as natural as the waves of the sea." And, as we wrote in the "Liner Notes" to his 2006 Zep Tepi release, "With age, like African Palm Wine, his music has grown tastier, deeper, sweeter, greater, soul-pleasing, spirit-uplifting, and body-regenerating at the loftiest level".
One of the still standing giants of this music genre is Randy Weston, a very active and living legend at 89 years old, a giant of Jazz and also a giant of a man (almost 8 feet tall). Everything about Randy is giant, huge (including a booming voice and laughter) that, as the late Jazz critic Stanley Crouch wrote, "Weston has the biggest sound of any jazz pianist since Ellington and Monk, as well as the richest most inventive beat..." Langston Hughes commented: "When Randy Weston plays, a combination of strength and gentleness virility and velvet emerges from the keys in an ebb and flow of sound seemingly as natural as the waves of the sea." And, as we wrote in the "Liner Notes" to his 2006 Zep Tepi release, "With age, like African Palm Wine, his music has grown tastier, deeper, sweeter, greater, soul-pleasing, spirit-uplifting, and body-regenerating at the loftiest level".
read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yaalengi-ngemi/randy-weston-a-giant-of-j_b_8683730.html
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