African Cookbook
Featuring the band and material that played the group's send-off at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1966 (resulting in the long-overdue issue of theMonterey '66CD in 1993), this Randy Weston band held solid ground in the space between a small ensemble and a big band.African Cookbookgets at least some of its name--and its spiritedness--from tenor saxophonistBooker Ervin, who takes the album's best solos in his Texas-tenor, blues-soaked style. The band plays at a slow simmer for much of the set, recorded in 1964 but unreleased until 1972, gliding into Weston's open architecture and effusive, Pan-African melodies. There's generous percussion here, much of it coming from the rarely heard Lennie McBrowne (who, by the way, stirs it up brilliantly on Ervin'sBooker and Brass), with the frequent addition of Big Black and Sir Harold Murray on small and handheld percussion. Unlike hosts of his contemporaries, Weston survived this period and created awesome works--not the least of which is 1998'sKhepera--but it's always great to hear material, like this, that barely saw light even when it was recorded.--Andrew Bartlett