A film made in 2020
.........during the pandemic in UK
Captured Moments from Now & Then
.........during the pandemic in UK
Captured Moments from Now & Then
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Wire Magazine. I have long thought that there are areas of jazz that have not been entirely worked out - maybe even most of it - and that conscious thought and a sense of history might in some cases produce a fresh analysis of relevant material which could revivefy existing codes and maybe bring into perspective the obsessive relationship between “originality” and “style” and “progress” which has allowed so much of what has gone on in jazz to be briefly and thrown out in a truly consumerist manner. Steve Lacy’s continuing re-working of the music of Monk and Herbie Nicholls is a good example of how jazz can be refreshed from within, and this album of Weston’s, though quite different, equally fulfills such conditions of possibility. - August 1987 - Jack Cooke Jazz Journal. Weston the writer is another talented animal. Tunes like Five Chord Piece are folky pieces of story telling, wheras Open Score takes him into Jarrett country with the kitch removed. Duke’s shows his conversancy with atonal music while Ridiculous comes over more as a jingle. Above all else, his writing shows originality as well as variety of mood. The whole record is a good excuse to buy British - September 1986 - Barry McRae |
Option (USA) His jazz chops are clearly evident, ranging from blues and stride piano up to and including Cecil Taylor. “Pentatonic Study After the Khène” is based on the Laosian Khène, a type of mouth organ which is limited to a pentatonic scale. Asian exoticism clearly manifest, and the sound is like a more percussive up-to-date Debussy. “Open Score” is a sectional platform for improvisation which begins with a gentle musical impressionism that is part Debussy and part Scriabin with rich, extended harmonies, oblique motion and angular lines. Later it breaks into a perculiar oscillating walking bass and the kind of humour, musicality, free spirit, and intelligence that one associates with Art Lande - November 1990 - Dean Suzuki
Hi-Fi News. Veryan Weston’s ‘Playing Alone’ (ACTA 9) is an avantgarde reinterpretation of ragtime, all very nervy leaps and spritely rhythms. At times it sounds like an improvised version of Conlon Nancarrow’s fiendish player-piano music. Weston keeps order by concentrating on a restricted set of knotty figures - 0ctober 1996 - Ben Watson
Wire. Recorded at home, and alone, it showers the listener with broken rhythms and jagged phrases. The ghost of jazz occasionally comes into focus through the brambles, but the governing theme seems to be the timing. Weston’s a master at delivering punches just before or after they might be expected to land. Also impressive is the taughtness of the thread that binds left to right hand melodic invention. Lovely stuff which should help raise a still undeservedly low profile - September 1996 - Will Montgomery
BBC Radio 3. Veryan Weston’s “Playing Alone” a set of unaccompanied improvisations taped at home in the spring of 1993 was one of the highpoints of the summer 1996 - October 1996 - Brian Morton
Wire. Recorded at home, and alone, it showers the listener with broken rhythms and jagged phrases. The ghost of jazz occasionally comes into focus through the brambles, but the governing theme seems to be the timing. Weston’s a master at delivering punches just before or after they might be expected to land. Also impressive is the taughtness of the thread that binds left to right hand melodic invention. Lovely stuff which should help raise a still undeservedly low profile - September 1996 - Will Montgomery
BBC Radio 3. Veryan Weston’s “Playing Alone” a set of unaccompanied improvisations taped at home in the spring of 1993 was one of the highpoints of the summer 1996 - October 1996 - Brian Morton
PARIS TRANSATLANTIC. This is music that never seems to be simply fast or slow, dense or sparse; rather, its rhythm is twofold, taking its pace from the way thought can act as a drag on the fingers or jump ahead of it, or the two can rush together in tandem – there's a beautiful example of him shifting between all three modes in Traces of Nuts – and Weston has a special love of textures that suggest a fugue where the parts have gotten a bit out of whack. It's often dazzling music – Prelude and Fug and Getting Somewhere are astonishing performances, in particular, the latter turning Salt Peanuts into a lightning Bartókian dance and ending with Over the Rainbow emerging from a mushroom-cloud – but never forbidding in its virtuosity. Not a wasted note, either - 2009 - NATE DORWARD
ALL ABOUT JAZZ. Tellingly, in the sleeve notes to PLAYING ALONE, Weston commented, 'Structures are the foundations from which I work. Building these spontaneously enables me to express a variety of emotions which are a central reason for me to play.' His playing here demonstrates that to be as true as ever. Whether referencing others' tunes or building his own, he creates structures that have an irresistible logic without dominating the music, and which do enable him to express a variety of emotions. Thirty years after his first recording, Veryan Weston is as fresh and inventive as ever; he goes from strength to strength - JOHN EYLES - 2009
ALL ABOUT JAZZ. Tellingly, in the sleeve notes to PLAYING ALONE, Weston commented, 'Structures are the foundations from which I work. Building these spontaneously enables me to express a variety of emotions which are a central reason for me to play.' His playing here demonstrates that to be as true as ever. Whether referencing others' tunes or building his own, he creates structures that have an irresistible logic without dominating the music, and which do enable him to express a variety of emotions. Thirty years after his first recording, Veryan Weston is as fresh and inventive as ever; he goes from strength to strength - JOHN EYLES - 2009
KEEPMEDIA. Tessellations is a unique work performed on a unique instrument by a unique pianist. On this CD Veryan Weston performs on what is arguably the grandest prepared piano in history: the presumed last Luthèal piano in existence. First built in 1914, the Lutheal piano uses organ-like stops to move small quills and pieces of felt into close proximity to the strings, producing timbres similar to those of harps, harpsichords and Hungarian cimbaloms. Weston thoroughly exploits the possibilities of the Luthèal piano in this album-length solo piece, which is built upon a sequence of 52 closely related pentatonic scales. In other settings, Weston can be an expansive improviser; here the demands of the materials dictate a concise, rigorous performance, which Weston delivers with often astonishing authority. In addition to the music, this single CD also contains a CD-ROM section that explains the interlocking relationships of the scales Weston used in the piece - BILL SHOEMAKER - 2005
POINT OF DEPARTURE. British pianist Veryan Weston’s Tessellations is one of the more riveting examinations of pitch systems in an improvisational context, in some ways harkening back to the period when John Coltrane started exploring Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and then exploring modes and triadic harmony in the context of each other. In some ways, Tessellations has a significance akin to Terry Riley’s In C, a work that changes the way we feel tonal relationships. The materials for Tessellations developed over a long period of time in Weston's music, but he first began recording it around 2000. In 2003 he recorded TESSELLATIONS FOR LUTHÉAL PIANO at the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels. The CD documents the remarkable character of the instrument as well as the piece, Weston exploring the Luthéal piano's organ-like stops for harpsichord and harp-like sounds - STUART BROOMER - 2011 - also includes an interview
POINT OF DEPARTURE. British pianist Veryan Weston’s Tessellations is one of the more riveting examinations of pitch systems in an improvisational context, in some ways harkening back to the period when John Coltrane started exploring Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and then exploring modes and triadic harmony in the context of each other. In some ways, Tessellations has a significance akin to Terry Riley’s In C, a work that changes the way we feel tonal relationships. The materials for Tessellations developed over a long period of time in Weston's music, but he first began recording it around 2000. In 2003 he recorded TESSELLATIONS FOR LUTHÉAL PIANO at the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels. The CD documents the remarkable character of the instrument as well as the piece, Weston exploring the Luthéal piano's organ-like stops for harpsichord and harp-like sounds - STUART BROOMER - 2011 - also includes an interview
