Randy Weston: Legacy

When "Legacy" was recorded, Randolph Edward "Randy" Weston was at the peak of his artistic output. At 74, his physical and mental faculties were nearly boundless.

July 2001: A magnificent Steinway grand piano, Model D, built in Hamburg—one of the best in existence—stands on the stage of the Montreux Palace hotel ballroom in Switzerland, not far from where he lived in Annecy, France, in the 1970s. The piano tuner has left. No audience, just the musician, sound engineer Blaise Grandjean, and the recording equipment, including a Nagra digital recorder. Concentration. Expression. Music of flow and structure. It is a now-or-never scenario; it is like a tightrope walk with a sleepwalker's intuition. No protection, no safety net.

On July 17, he plays for 60 minutes nonstop, no breaks, full steam ahead; on July 18, 70 minutes. One can sense that this could have gone on forever. There were no cuts, no post-processing, no manipulation of what was played: you hear only what the microphones heard. Following Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, and Thelonious Monk, Randy Weston joined Keith Jarrett and played his way right to the top.

Why did these invaluable recordings remain unreleased for so long? From 2001 to 2017, they were accessible only to Randy Weston himself and sound engineer Blaise Grandjean. In 2017, Weston had a few hundred copies produced as a private pressing, not for general distribution. We can only speculate what the motivation might have been. The immediate directness of the recordings was perhaps "too much" of a revelation.

Randy Weston's widow, Fatoumata Mbengue Weston, decided that the music should be out there for everyone and not locked away in archives. Sound engineer Blaise Grandjean held the original digital masters. Over more than two decades, backup copies were made to ensure the integrity of the digital sound files. He himself created a new master for distribution on CD, LP, and digital. The project is now complete, and a new beginning has been made.