Timbuktu (The music of Randy Weston)

Description

'Timbuktu, the music of Randy Weston' with GUESTS: MANU DIBANGO, ABD AL MALIK ALI WAGE, MAJID BEKKAS.Rarely has a human being been so in tune with his creations as Cheick Tidiane Seck. The man is what you call a cream: in the sense that he is a profoundly generous pianist, but also because his music has something of a healing balm. A longtime sideman in the shadows, a pillar on which the stars - from Jimmy Cliff to Santana - relied, the Malian took center stage thanks to Sarala, the album he co-produced with pianist Hank Jones in 1995. In the image of the words that open "Tanjah" at the start of the album ("Here we will pay homage to the worthy son of Africa, Mr. Randy Weston"), Cheick Tidiane Seck imagines this album as a joyful funeral oration, a sonic communion, a dancing mass." AN AFRO JAZZ PRAYER FOR RANDY WESTON " --- LIBÉRATION ---." A joyful funeral oration, a sonic communion, a dancing mass for Randy Weston. " --- FRANCE MUSIQUE ---."(...) If 'Timbuktu, The Music of Randy Weston' is inducted as the album of the week by Grigri, you can bet it leans toward the good side of the Force, (...) for several reasons we'll take pleasure in listing (...):--- It is the first true tribute paid to Randy Weston, a monumental pianist and pioneer of exchanges between jazz and Gnawa music. Gone a year ago, the man was among those who shaped the famous spiritual jazz that an entire generation claims today.--- Cheick Tidiane Seck was truly a friend of Randy Weston, so this is not a tribute by someone lacking ideas, but a kind of mass dedicated to a loved one, like the opening track where the Malian pianist plays an intro full of tenderness.--- Tribute does not mean museumification, and Cheick Tidiane Seck uses the timeless themes of his elder ("Niger Mambo," "Ganawa (Blues Moses)," "African Songbook") as vast playgrounds for re-creation. He stretches, accelerates, and tempers the melodies as Hitchcock would with suspense. His version of "In Memory Of" (a cult track sampled in its time by Prodigy) is so bluesy it sounds like a pact with the devil signed with both hands.--- Manu Dibango, another master of afro-jazz, is a guest on two eventful tracks ("Timbuktu," "African Cookbook"). And at 85 years old, the Cameroonian seems inhabited as rarely before.--- On the last track, the only composition on the album, "Mr Randy," Cheick Tidiane Seck plays on a Moog (the slightly psychedelic synth from the soundtrack of A Clockwork Orange, for example). And it was given to him by his friend Damon Albarn. For the Malian has such a thick address book (Stevie Wonder, Wayne Shorter, Jimmy Cliff, Carlos Santana, Archie Shepp, Salif Keita...) that it resembles the Golden Dictionary of Music. And despite everything, the man and his music exude humility at every moment. Because a great album is not always an ode to a puffed chest. It can be, like 'Timbuktu, The Music of Randy Weston', a hymn to deference. " ---- LE GRI-GRI---.