LEGACY (2 CD) — Randy Weston for Sale

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LEGACY (2 CD) — Randy Weston For Sale

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LEGACY (2 CD) — Randy Weston:
$25.00

This listing is for a new CD directly from the label:

Hewas a sage. His art was music; his life was art.

WhenLEGACY was recorded, he was at the highest his talent would take him. At 74years of age, his physical and intellectual facilities were almost limitless.But it wasn't just his talent he expressed through music; it was his mission asan American of African descent that fuelled his musical expression and what heperceived as his role in life: to connect, to persuade and then to play andpersuade more with the tool of music. It is only then that we don't need atranslation to hear and understand.

When– toward the end of his life – the great Duke Ellington was infirm, he hadasked Randy Weston to fill in for him for concerts. With Ellington'scontribution to this recording, an almost one-hundred-year-old piece calledCHROMATIC LOVE AFFAIR comes back to life. Randy Weston – at the outset of hiscareer – thought of himself as a band leader which indeed he had been fordecades. But it was Ellington and his sister Ruth who had strongly encouragedhim to play solo.

Julyof 2001. A magnificent Steinway grand piano, model D, built in Hamburg, amongthe best one can get, set up on the stage of the ballroom of the MontreuxPalace hotel in Switzerland, not far from where he used to live in Annecy inFrance in the 1970s. The tuner has left. No audience, just the musician, therecording engineer Blaise Grandjean and the audio equipment including a Nagradigital recorder. Concentration. Expression. Music of flow and structure. It'sa now-or-never scenario; it's like walking the rope with sleep-walking sense.No protection, no security.

OnJuly 17th sixty minutes, non-stop, no break, full speed ahead. On July 18thseventy minutes; you could feel that this could go on for eternity, ten minutesmore each day until eternity could be understood. There was no editing, noprocessing, no manipulation of what had been accomplished; you only hear whatthe microphones heard. Following Art Tatum, Erroll Garner and Thelonious Monk,Randy Weston bypassed Keith Jarrett and played himself straight to the top.

Whywould these priceless recordings remain unpublished for so long? From 2001 to2017 they were only accessible to Randy Weston himself other than BlaiseGrandjean, the engineer. In 2017 he had a few hundred CD copies made as aprivate pressing, not for general distribution. We can only guess what themotivation (or the lack thereof) might have been. A rare case of being soterribly afraid of being hurt if there were to be rejection of some kind. Notbeing able to face the world after having given his best and exposing hisdeepest vulnerabilities.

RandyWeston's widow Fatoumata Mbengue Weston had the key, metaphorically speaking.She decided that the music should be out there, not locked away in need of akey to get to it. The recording engineer Blaise Grandjean had the digitaloriginal masters. Everything had been backed up over more than two decades tosafeguard the integrity of the digital sound files. He himself generated a newmaster for CD, Lp and digital distribution. The venture has come to its end anda new beginning.

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LEGACY (2 CD) — Randy Weston For Sale

LEGACY (2 CD) — Randy Weston: $25.00

LEGACY (2 CD) — Randy Weston:
$25.00