Randy Weston’s Tribute to Doudou N'Diaye Rose and the Universality of Music

Jazz giant Randy Weston sat down on Thursday night, February 18th with an ensemble of
his peers as part of the New School Jazz Artist-in-Residence program to perform and
discuss his primary musical inspiration: Africa. As an artist, Weston has traveled
extensively throughout the continent beginning in the late 1960’s.

Originally, Senegalese master drummer Doudou N’Diaye Rose was a scheduled feature
at the event, but his unexpected passed in August of 2015 turned the program heavily into
homage of his musical legacy.

After the screening of an excerpt from a French TV documentary in which N’Diaye Rose
leads a very large ensemble of both men and women in a percussion performance on the
Senegalese Island of Goree, the conversation took form in remembering the drummer and
the extent of his influence on African music, which included the development of 500 new
rhythms and inventions of new drums.

As one of his most important artistic relationships, Weston along with N’Diaye Rose’s
nephew Mar Gueye, and his son, Mor Coumba Gueye, reminisced enthusiastically about
the master drummer.

“The first I met him, I sat front of him and he spoke to me in French and I didn’t
understand nothing,” said Weston. “But I had so much respect for his mastery that I knew
you don’t meet too many people with this power of music.”

For the remainder of the program, Weston and the Gueyes along with sabar dancers and
kora players interspersed collaborative, and heavily improvisational, performances with
conversation on the universality of music and the ways in which it unites us in our roots
as one people single people. Weston along with his panel were committed to the idea that
music transcends race, class, and all distinctions of society; music is all of ours language
collectively.

“Music is that mysterious, magical force, it is the creators gift to us and it takes us all
around the world,” said Weston. “You can fly out to somewhere and speak none of the
language, but when you arrive at the airport, the people can play a piece of music.
Because [they know] music human... it is all spiritual.”

There a few more TBA dates to be set for the remainder of Weston’s residency. In a time
and environment where race relations are constantly at a tension, Weston’s performance
served to bring everyone together in music for one night at Tishman Auditorium.