JAZZ REVIEW : Weston Trio Serves Up a Potent Set at Vanguard

The pianist and composer Randy Weston says he cannot remember the last time he brought his trio to Los Angeles. At the Village Vanguard Sunday he offered stunning evidence of what the Southland has been missing.

His perennial billing, “Randy Weston and His African Rhythms,” is at once more and less than promised. The ethnic overtones on “African Cookbook,” with its hypnotic 6/8 beat set by the bassist Jamil Nasser and his network of complex rhythms in Carl Allen’s climactic drum solo, achieved a distinctly sub-Saharan flavor. In a tune Weston dedicated to Nelson Mandela, “The Healers,” his message of peace was not only African but at times vaguely Asian and, in the pianist’s passionate chordal volleys, distinctly American with touches of Ellington.

Weston’s version of “Caravan” began with a long, mood-setting solo passage before the rhythm section joined in to establish the authentic near-Eastern touch that is too often lacking in performances of the tune.

The ethnic and spiritual values of these works contrasted with “Little Niles,” Weston’s celebrated jazz waltz. Ebbing and flowing, roaring and sighing, his performance at times was a shattering exploration of the keyboard’s entire range, particularly the rumbling lower register; yet at other moments the energy gave way to an affecting delicacy. Similarly “Jitterbug Waltz,” played unaccompanied, brought dazzling, rhythmically shifting insights to the 50-year-old Fats Waller standard.

Although Weston was inspired by Thelonious Monk and despite residual traces of the influence, he has long since evolved a style that is unmistakably his own; moreover, in Nasser and Allen he has not merely an accompaniment but two potent elements in a compellingly unified trio.

For too long Weston has been among the most overlooked and underrated figures in his field. Today, still searching for and finding fresh and insightful values, he is reaching a new creative peak.