ALBUM REVIEWS : ** 1/2 RANDY WESTON “Portraits of Monk” <i> Verve</i>

Weston’s grandeur is submerged as he wanders through an ocean of pseudo-Monkisms. On “Well, You Needn’t,” a bare-bones two-bar riff tune, he works it via a lengthy vamp; on another cut, he simply plays the blues for 13 1/2 minutes. Other pianists, notably Tommy Flanagan, have made successful Monk albums by combining some of his best tunes with their own pianistic idiosyncrasies, but Weston, a long-ago Monk student, here has an identity crisis.