Personnel:
Kenny Dorham (tp), Coleman Hawkins (ts), Randy Weston (p), Wilbur Little (b), Roy Haynes, Clifford Jarvis (d), Brock Peters (vcl)
Reference: FSRCD 1645
Bar code: 8427328616454
The scene for Randy Weston's Open House was the Five Spot Cafe in Manhattan. The time, a rather dreary Monday in the Fall of 1959, and the setting about as wild a scene as you will ever make.
The live performance recording was scheduled for that same evening, but Coleman Hawkins was somewhere high in the skies between Chicago and New York; Roy Haynes was taking a similar route through the sky from Boston, and Wilbur Little and his bass were last heard from in Washington, D.C. Finally, Melba Liston, hospitalized in California, had air-mailed her arrangements for the datebut they had not as yet been delivered.
At 9:30 p.m. the missing musicians began to gatherKenny Dorham, trumpet in hand, Hawkins and Haynes from their respective flights, Little from his train.
Shortly thereafter the missing arrangements were delivered, and a tall, rather relieved Randy Weston passed out the music. There was no rehearsalvery little warm-up.
The results are on this albumand you can wrap them up in just two words... Fabulous Musicianship.
