Randy Weston

There were two young musicians who later became stars.

Sonny Rollins and Randy Weston who were drawn to Monk and his school that he had in his apartment.

Yes, in 63rd Street.

In his

so damn modern.

And

who else did you mention? Well, it was Randy Weston.

And Randy Weston.

It was originally an English ballad called The Lincolnshire Poacher, but was somehow adapted into a nursery song through the folk process in the Virgin Islands.

Rollins' mother would sing it to him as a child, but independently, pianist Randy Weston, who was fascinated with African culture, discovered the same tune, and he recorded it a year before Sonny Rollins, but under the name of Fire Down There.

I think I'll play the whole six and a half minute Sonny Rollins version from his Saxophone Colossus album of 1956 with Tommy Flanagan piano, Doug Watkins bass, Max Roach drums, and Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone.

St. Thomas.

Um, we'll rock on, and indeed rock out, with a track from Kevin Brady's excellent album, Common Ground.

This would be, uh, the closing track, in fact, Randy Weston's composition, Little Niles.

Bill Carothers is the pianist, Kevin Brady of course on the drums, Dave Redmond on bass, John Moriarty on guitar.

Little Niles.

He kept performing wherever he could find a stage, in Nigeria and increasingly internationally, as his reputation spread beyond West Africa.

With time, Kuti won over influential fans like jazz pianist Randy Weston, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Ginger Baker from Cream, Fela Kuti eventually died on August 2, 1997.

He was 58 years old.

In 2023, Rolling Stone included him on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Here he interprets the T-Bone Burnett tune This World is a Mean World on his album Americana Volume Two.

And then we had the Randy Weston composition High Fly.

It's delivered here by Larry Goldings on organ, and he's here with Peter Bernstein on the guitar and Bill Stewart on the drums.

High Fly.