"In African music," Randy Weston observed in a 1998 interview, "there aren't the categories of the past, the present and the future. Music is a timeless thing." He proves it every time he touches a piano or puts pencil to composition paper. Weston descends from a long line of seers who build on what the ancestors left us to create music of startling originality-music of the future. This is why Ancient Future (a title lovingly borrowed from Dr. Wayne Chandler's new book Ancient Future: The Teachings and Prophetic Wisdom of the Seven Hermetic Laws of Ancient Egypt) so perfectly defines Weston's approach to music and life. Like Dr. Chandler's book, Weston's music reveals the wisdom of the ancient world, where art, science, and spirituality were one, where music was not entertainment-for-sale but a life-force at the core of civilization itself. Weston demolishes distinctions between traditional and modern, composition and improvisation, enveloping us with what really counts: the music's spiritual essence. And what better way to capture the spiritual dimensions of this great music than Weston, in his solitude, singing, praying, meditating, shouting, through the medium of Bosendorfer piano which he transforms into a giant talking drum or a 97-stringed kora?