Randy Weston - Mosaic Select 4 [2003] (3 x CDs)

SUNDAY JAZZ

RANDY WESTON

Randy Weston - Mosaic Select 4 [2003] (3 x CDs)

There is a particular feeling that comes over me whenever I spend time with Randy Weston’s early recordings. It is the sense that the piano is not just an instrument but a landscape, and Weston is walking through it with long, deliberate strides. Mosaic Select 4 captures that journey in a way no single album ever could. Three discs, drawn from sessions recorded between 1957 and 1963, each one carrying a different temperature, a different light, a different sense of purpose. When I listen to the set straight through, I feel as though I am tracing the outline of a mind that was already thinking far beyond the borders of American jazz.

The first thing that hits me is the physicality of his playing. Weston never rushes. He lets chords settle, lets rhythms breathe, lets melodies stretch out until they find their natural shape. Even the earliest tracks in the box have that quality. You can hear him building a foundation, stone by stone, confident that the music will hold. There is a calm strength in those performances, a sense that he knows exactly where he is going even when the band is still finding its footing.

Then the room changes. The live material brings a different kind of energy, the kind that only comes from musicians listening to one another with full attention. The horns push, the rhythm section leans forward, and Weston responds with lines that feel carved rather than played. The sound is rough in places, but that roughness is part of the truth. You hear the club, the crowd, the moment.

And then, almost without warning, the horizon opens. The later sessions in the set reveal the beginning of Weston’s lifelong conversation with African rhythm and melody. The pieces grow larger, the arrangements more layered, the sense of ceremony unmistakable. It is as if he has stepped onto a wider stage, one that stretches far beyond New York. These recordings do not feel like experiments. They feel like homecoming.

hat Mosaic has done here is give us a way to hear the transition as it happened. Not a leap, not a reinvention, but a steady widening of the frame. By the time the final disc ends, you realise you have been listening to an artist discovering the full reach of his voice. The set does not tell a story. It reveals one, slowly, patiently, with the same grace Weston brought to the piano.

It is a remarkable experience, and one that stays with you long after the last note fades. (B)

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Track lists

CD1

01 Randy Weston - Earth Birth 2:52

02 Randy Weston - Little Susan 3:24

03 Randy Weston - Nice Ice 2:55

04 Randy Weston - Littlle Niles 6:00

05 Randy Weston - Pam's Waltz 3:15

06 Randy Weston - Babe's Blues 6:58

07 Randy Weston - Let's Climb a Hill 5:53

08 Randy Weston - Hi Fly 7:21

09 Randy Weston - Beef Blues Stew 5:00

10 Randy Weston - Star Crossed Lovers 5:09

11 Randy Weston - Spot Five Blues 10:43

12 Randy Weston - Lisa Lovely 4:38

13 Randy Weston - Where 5:57

CD2

01 Randy Weston - Earth Birth 5:13

02 Randy Weston - Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen 3:16

03 Randy Weston - Saucer Eyes 4:21

04 Randy Weston - I Got Rhythm 5:24

05 Randy Weston - Gingerbread 2:57

06 Randy Weston - Cocktails for Two 3:37

07 Randy Weston - Honeysuckle Rose 6:30

08 Randy Weston - Fe-Double-U Blues 5:37

09 Randy Weston - Portrait of Patsy J 4:09

10 Randy Weston - Uncle Nemo 5:01

11 Randy Weston - Cry Me Not 5:19

12 Randy Weston - Honk Honk 2:03

13 Randy Weston - Saucer Eyes 4:24

14 Randy Weston - 204 6:34

15 Randy Weston - C.B. Blues 4:58

CD3

01 Randy Weston - Introduction: Uhuru Kwanza (Part One) 2:35

02 Randy Weston - First Movement: Uhuru Kwanza (Part Two) 5:50

03 Randy Weston - Second Movement: African Lady 8:27

04 Randy Weston - Third Movement: Bantu 8:07

05 Randy Weston - Fourth Movement: Kucheza Blues 8:03

06 Randy Weston - Caban Bamboo Highlife 2:46

07 Randy Weston - Niger Mambo 5:03

08 Randy Weston - Zulu 4:42

09 Randy Weston - In Memory Of 7:46

10 Randy Weston - Congolese Children 2:34

11 Randy Weston - Blues to Africa 6:23

12 Randy Weston - Mystery of Love 7:41

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Music weaves itself into the fabric of our emotions, dances through the corridors of memory, and whispers to the soul of who we are. Sharing these stories deepens the connection, turning the experience into something timeless and profound.

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