By Howard Reich
The rolling rhythms and rumbling, right-hand octaves he delivers in his “Blues for Senegal,” the sonorous mid-register lyricism he conjures in his “Berkshire Blues” and the mystical gestures and complex harmonies he coaxes from the piano’s stratosphere in his “The Healers” point to a pianist with a pervasively orchestral concept. He tips his hat to Chicago with a piano-solo version of “African Sunrise,” which the Chicago Jazz Festival commissioned him to create for trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and orchestra in 1984. Weston’s all-over-the-keys manner evokes the sound of many instruments, each given voice under his remarkably nimble fingertips.
Published in the Chicago Tribune as part of a review of the whole day’s Hyde Park Jazz Fest.