Though initially the Riverside label concerned itself with reissuing classic recordings by the likes of Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver and Ma Rainey, when in April 1954, it launched a modern jazz line it was with the relatively unknown pianist Randy Weston. Simultaneously, they bought Thelonious Monk's contract from Prestige for just $100 plus change and persuaded him to record an album of Ellington compositions, while Weston – in cahoots with bassist Sam Gill – debuted with a selection of eight familiar Cole Porter songs. Similarities between Monk and Weston may have been frequently commented upon, but the latter quickly proved to be very much his own man, to where in topping the piano section of Downbeat magazine's 1955 New Star Critics Poll, he accrued twice as many votes as runners up Russ Freeman and John Lewis combined.

Far more interesting than many of his contemporaries and promoted as a serious contender, Weston was seldom seen as being of cult status -which ironically he ultimately became. Here, his entire output for Riverside plus one LP he later cut for Dawn are loaded with intriguing ideas be it a quirky approach to ‘Sweet Sue’, ‘Twelfth Street Rag’ and ‘It's All Right With Me’, acknowledging his Jamaican heritage with the inclusion of calypsos ‘Fire Down There’ and ‘Hold ‘Em Joe’, or displaying his compositional development with ‘Little Niles’ and ‘Chessman's Delight’.

Perhaps not for the casual explorer, Weston – especially on the ‘Jazz A La Bohemia’ segment – is far from being an antique timepiece, rather a player whose ideas have remained a most viable currency.