Randy Weston, Khepera - 1h 8m 22s

Tracks & Durations

1. Creation	3:58
2. Anu Anu	8:31
3. The Shrine	11:52
4. The Shang	7:55
5. Prayer Blues	6:25
6. Boram Xam Xam	4:24
7. Portrait Of Cheikh Anta Diop	8:58
8. Niger Mambo	6:33
9. Mystery Of Love	9:39

Note: The information about this album is acquired from the publicly available resources and we are not responsible for their accuracy.

Review

Pianist, composer, and bandleader Randy Weston never ceases to find new heights of excellence, whether exploring West African polyrhythms in jazz or excoriating silence with blasting energy. Khepera blasts open with "Creation," which ushers in a lengthy, telling meditation on jazz's intercontinental reach, both in terms of source material and influence. Chief Bey's percussion and Pharoah Sanders's saxophone playing bookend the meditation, the former a methodical, though limber, heartbeat and the latter a constant burst of energy. Then Weston turns to duets with pipa virtuoso Min Xiao Fen, showing the free sprawl of shared improvisational languages. --Andrew BartlettSince the mid '50s, 72-year-old pianist-composer Randy Weston has explored jazz's pan-African connections. On this CD--named after the ancient Egyptian word meaning "transformation"--Weston pays tribute to the great Senegalese historian and educator Cheik Anta Diop and the ancient African-Asian encounter that took place thousands of years ago in China's Shang Dynasty.

Weston and his long-time collaborators--arranger Melba Liston, percussionist Neil Clarke, trombonist Benny Powell, bassist Alex Blake, and saxophonist-flutist Talib Kibwe--are joined by special guest tenor/soprano saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, African master drummer Chief Bey, and Min Xiao-Fen on the pipa and Chinese gong. With Weston's sparse and deep Duke Ellington/Thelonious Monk-birthed piano tones, the music moves and grooves with an ancestral air. "Creation" is a thundering, atonal rendering of the birth of man. "Anu Anu," "The Shrine," and "Boram Xam Xam" showcase Kibwe and Powell's evocative stylings and Sanders's electrical sax lines laced over the mesmerizing rhythmic caravans led by Bey and trap drummer Victor Lewis. On "The Shang," the Afro-Chinese links come alive in Xiao-Fen's traditional pipa playing which echos the west African kora and is matched to Weston's equally exotic chord clusters. The mid-tempo "Prayer Blues" swings in Ellingtonian fashion, and "Portrait of Cheikh Anta Diop" is a propulsive and percussive recreation of the African intellectual's comprehensive and complex genius. "Niger Mambo" traces the Cuban dance back to its motherland roots, and "Mystery of Love" concludes this incredible recording with a spiritual send-off that brilliantly illuminates this stunning Afro-Eurasian eclipse. --Eugene Holley Jr.

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