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6 April 1926 – 1 September 2018
Randy Weston (92) died at his home in Brooklyn. His death was
announced by his wife and business partner, Fatoumata Weston.
After contributing six decades of musical direction and genius,
Randy Weston remains one of the world’s foremost pianists
and composers today, a true innovator and visionary. Encompassing
the vast rhythmic heritage of Africa, his global creations musically
continue to inform and inspire.
“Weston has the biggest sound of any jazz pianist since
Ellington and Monk, as well as the richest most inventive beat,”
states jazz critic Stanley Crouch, “but his art is more
than projection and time; it’s the result of a studious and
inspired intelligence...an intelligence that is creating a fresh
synthesis of African elements with jazz technique”.
Randy Weston, born in Brooklyn, New York in 1926, didn’t
have to travel far to hear the early jazz giants that were to influence
him. Though Weston cites Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Art Tatum,
and of course, Duke Ellington as his other piano heroes, it was
Monk who had the greatest impact. “He was the most original
I ever heard,” Weston remembers. “He played
like they must have played in Egypt 5000 years ago.”
Randy Weston’s first recording as a leader came in 1954 on
Riverside Records Randy Weston plays Cole Porter - Cole Porter in
a modern mood It was in the 50’s when Randy Weston played
around New York with Cecil Payne and Kenny Dorham that he wrote
many of his best loved tunes, “Saucer Eyes,” “Pam's
Waltz,” “Little Niles,” and, “Hi-Fly.”
His greatest hit, “Hi-Fly,” Weston (who is 6’
8”) says, is a “tale of being my height and looking
down at the ground.”
Randy Weston has never failed to make the connections between African
and American music. His dedication is due in large part to his father,
Frank Edward Weston, who told his son that he was, “an
African born in America.” “He told me I had to learn
about myself and about him and about my grandparents,”
Weston said in an interview, “and the only way to do it
was I’d have to go back to the motherland one day.”
In the late 60’s, Weston left the country. But instead of
moving to Europe like so many of his contemporaries, Weston went
to Africa. Though he settled in Morocco, he travelled throughout
the continent tasting the musical fruits of other nations. One of
his most memorable experiences was the 1977 Nigerian festival, which
drew artists from 60 cultures. “At the end,”
Weston says, “we all realised that our music was different
but the same, because if you take out the African elements of bossa
nova, samba, jazz, blues, you have nothing..........To me, it’s
Mother Africa’s way of surviving in the new world.”
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