Randy Weston is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, of Jamaican parentage.

Biography

Weston studied classical piano as a child. After serving in the U.S. Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he ran a restaurant that was frequented by many of the leading bebop musicians. Among his piano heroes are numbered Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

, Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

, Art Tatum

Art Tatum

Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...

 and Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

 (and Wynton Kelly

Wynton Kelly

Wynton Kelly was a Jamaican-born jazz pianist, who spent his career in the United States. He is perhaps best known for working with trumpeter Miles Davis from 1959-1962.-Biography:...

 was a cousin), but it was Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...

 who had the greatest impact.

Weston has had a considerable career in jazz as a pianist, composer, and bandleader. In the late 1940s he began gigging with bands including Bullmoose Jackson, Frank Culley and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. He worked with Kenny Dorham

Kenny Dorham

McKinley Howard Dorham was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did...

 in 1953 and in 1954 with Cecil Payne

Cecil Payne

Cecil Payne was a jazz baritone saxophonist born in Brooklyn, NY. Payne also played the alto saxophone and flute...

, before forming his own trio and quartet and releasing his debut recording as a leader in 1954, Cole Porter

Cole Porter

Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...

 In a Modern Mood. He was voted New Star Pianist in Down Beat

Down Beat

Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...

magazine's International Critics' Poll of 1955. Several fine albums followed, with the best being Little Niles near the end of that decade. Melba Liston provided excellent arrangements for a sextet playing several of Weston's best compositions: the title track, "Earth Birth," "Babe's Blues," and others.

Randy Weston's piano style owes much to Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

 and Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...

 (he has paid direct tribute to both on the "portraits" albums), but it is highly distinctive in its qualities: percussive, highly rhythmic, capable of producing a wide variety of moods.

In the 1960s, Weston's music prominently incorporated African elements, as shown on the large-scale suite Uhuru Africa (with the participation of poet Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

) and Highlife: Music From the New African Nations; on both these albums he teamed up with the arranger Melba Liston

Melba Liston

Melba Doretta Liston was an American jazz musician . Her collaborations with pianist/composer Randy Weston, beginning in the early 1960s, are widely acknowledged as jazz classics.-Life and career:Liston was born in Kansas City, Missouri...

. In addition, during these years his band often featured the tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin

Booker Ervin

Booker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....

. He covered the Nigerian Bobby Benson

Bobby Benson

Bobby Benson was an entertainer and musician who had considerable influence on the Nigerian music scene, introducing big band and Caribbean idioms to the Highlife style of popular West African music.-Life:...

's piece "Niger Mambo", which included Caribbean and jazz elements within a Highlife

Highlife

Highlife is a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s and spread to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920...

 style. Weston has recorded this number many times throughout his career.

In 1967 Weston traveled throughout Africa with a U.S. cultural delegation. The last stop of the tour was Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, where he decided to settle, running his African Rhythms Club from 1967 to 1972. In 1972 he produced "Blue Moses" for the CTI label; here, out of character he played electric piano, but this proved to be a best-selling record.

For a long stretch Weston recorded infrequently on smaller record labels. However, he made quite an impact with the two-CD

Double album

A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....

 recording The Spirits of Our Ancestors (recorded 1991; released 1992), which featured arrangements by his long-time collaborator Melba Liston

Melba Liston

Melba Doretta Liston was an American jazz musician . Her collaborations with pianist/composer Randy Weston, beginning in the early 1960s, are widely acknowledged as jazz classics.-Life and career:Liston was born in Kansas City, Missouri...

. The album contained new, expanded versions of many of his well-known pieces and featured an ensemble including some African musicians. Guests such as Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

 and Pharoah Sanders

Pharoah Sanders

Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...

 also contributed.

Randy Weston has since produced a series of albums in a variety of formats: solo, trio, mid-sized groups, and collaborations with the Gnawa

Gnawa

The Gnawa people originated from North and West Africa; to be precise the ancient Ghanaian Empire of Ouagadougou .This name Gnawa is taken from one of the indigenous languages of the Sahara Desert called Tamazight...

musicians of Morocco. Weston's best known compositions include "Hi-Fly" (which he has said was inspired by his experience of being 6' 8" and looking down at the ground), "Little Niles" (named for his son, later known as Azzedine), "African Sunrise," "Blue Moses," "The Healers" and "Berkshire Blues." Regarded as jazz standards, they have frequently been recorded by other prominent musicians, among them: Cannonball Adderley, Monty Alexander

Monty Alexander

Monty Alexander is a jazz pianist and melodica player. His playing has a strong Caribbean influence and swinging feeling, but he has also been influenced by Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly, and Ahmad Jamal.-Biography:Alexander discovered the piano at the age of 4, taking classical music...

, Ray Baretto, Art Blakey

Art Blakey

Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....

, Roy Brooks

Roy Brooks

Roy Brooks was an American hard bop jazz drummer.-Biography:Brooks was born in Detroit and drummed since childhood. He was an outstanding varsity basketball player as a teenager and was offered a scholarship to the Detroit Institute of Technology; he attended the school for three semesters and...

, Ray Bryant

Ray Bryant

Raphael Homer "Ray" Bryant was an American Jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ray Bryant began playing the piano at the age of six, also performing on bass in junior High School...

, Kenny Burrell

Kenny Burrell

Kenneth Earl "Kenny" Burrell is an American jazz guitarist. His playing is grounded in bebop and blues; he has performed and recorded with a wide range of jazz musicians.-Biography:...

, Betty Carter

Betty Carter

Betty Carter was an American jazz singer renowned for her improvisational technique and idiosyncratic vocal style...

, Ron Carter

Ron Carter

Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...

, Johnny Coles

Johnny Coles

Johnny Coles was an American jazz trumpeter.Coles spent his early career playing with R&B groups, including those of Eddie Vinson , Bull Moose Jackson , and Earl Bostic...

, Eric Dolphy

Eric Dolphy

Eric Allan Dolphy was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s...

, Booker Ervin

Booker Ervin

Booker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....

, Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...

, Lionel Hampton

Lionel Hampton

Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...

, Sheila Hampton, Jimmy Heath

Jimmy Heath

James Edward Heath , nicknamed Little Bird, is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger. He is the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.-Biography:...

, Jon Hendricks

Jon Hendricks

Jon Hendricks is an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists...

, Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard

Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...

, Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson is a jazz vibraphone and marimba player. His vibraphone playing is suggestive of the style of Milt Jackson in its free-flowing melodicism, but his sense of harmony and group interaction is thoroughly modern...

, Abdullah Ibrahim

Abdullah Ibrahim

Abdullah Ibrahim , born Adolph Johannes Brand, 9 October 1934 in Cape Town, South Africa, and formerly known as Dollar Brand, is a South African pianist and composer...

, Ahmad Jamal

Ahmad Jamal

Ahmad Jamal is an innovative and influential American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. According to Stanley Crouch, Jamal is second in importance in the development of jazz after 1945 only to Charlie Parker...

, Talib Kibwe, Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...

, Abbey Lincoln

Abbey Lincoln

Anna Marie Wooldridge , better known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was a jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. Lincoln was unusual in that she wrote and performed her own compositions, expanding the expectations of jazz audiences.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, she was one of many...

, Cecil Payne

Cecil Payne

Cecil Payne was a jazz baritone saxophonist born in Brooklyn, NY. Payne also played the alto saxophone and flute...

, Oscar Pettiford

Oscar Pettiford

Oscar Pettiford was an American jazz double bassist, cellist and composer known particularly for his pioneering work in bebop.-Biography:...

, Max Roach

Max Roach

Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...

, George Shearing

George Shearing

Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...

, Archie Shepp

Archie Shepp

Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...

, Carly Simon

Carly Simon

Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...

, Jimmy Smith

Jimmy Smith (musician)

Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...

 and Mel Tormé

Mel Tormé

Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...

.

After more than five decades devoted to music, Randy Weston continues to perform throughout the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe. In 2002 he performed with bassist James Lewis for the inauguration of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina or Maktabat al-Iskandarīyah is a major library and cultural center located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in the Egyptian city of Alexandria...

 in Alexandria, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. That same year he performed with Gnawa musicians at Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....

 at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

. He had the honour of playing at the Kamigamo Shrine

Kamigamo Shrine

is an important Shinto sanctuary on the banks of the Kamo River in north Kyoto, first founded in 678. Its formal name is the .It is one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Japan and is one of the seventeen Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto which have been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site...

 in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in 2005. He has been the recipient of many international awards, including: in 1997 the French Order of Arts and Letters; in 1999 the Japan's Swing Journal Award; and in 2000 the Black Star Award from the Arts Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana. In June 2006, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music by Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

, City University of New York

City University of New York

The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...

. In October 2010, Duke University Press

Duke University Press

Duke University Press is an academic publisher of books and journals, and a unit of Duke University. It publishes approximately 120 books annually and more than 40 journals, as well as offering five electronic collections...

 published African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston, "composed by Randy Weston, arranged by Willard Jenkins".

as leader

• 1954: Cole Porter in a Modern Mood (Riverside)
• 1955: Get Happy with the Randy Weston Trio (Riverside)
• 1955: Randy Weston Solo, Duo, Trio with Art Blakey (Riverside)
• 1956: How High the Moon (Collectables Records
  Collectables Records
  Collectables is a reissue record label founded in 1980 by Jerry Greene. Greene was previously associated with New York City's Times Square Record Shop, Philadelphia's Record Museum retail chain, and the Lost Nite and Crimson record labels....
  
  )
• 1956: The Modern Art of Jazz
• 1956: With These Hands (Riverside)
• 1958: New Faces at Newport (MetroJazz Records
  MetroJazz Records
  -Discography:...
  
  )
• 1957: Piano à la Mode (Jubilee)
• 1959: Little Niles (Blue Note
  Blue note
  In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the...
  
  )
• 1959: Destry Rides Again (United Artists
  United Artists
  United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
  
  )
• 1959: Live at the Five Spot (United Artists)
• 1960: Uhuru Afrika (Capitol
  Capitol Records
  Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
  
  )
• 1960: Greenwich Village Jazz (Jazz A La Bohemia) (Jazzland)
• 1963: Highlife with Melba Liston
  Melba Liston
  Melba Doretta Liston was an American jazz musician . Her collaborations with pianist/composer Randy Weston, beginning in the early 1960s, are widely acknowledged as jazz classics.-Life and career:Liston was born in Kansas City, Missouri...
  
   (Colpix)
• 1964: African Cookbook (Atlantic)
• 1965: Berkshire Blues
• 1966: Monterey, '66 (Verve)
• 1972: Blue Moses (CTI)
• 1973: Tanjah (Polydor)
• 1974: Blues To Africa (Freedom Records
  Freedom Records
  Freedom Records was a jazz record label linked with the producer Alan Bates, as with his Black Lion Records.Individual recordings were distributed via Polydor Records and Transatlantic Records during the early 1970s before the company was bought by Arista Records.-Discography:*1000 Albert Ayler &...
  
  )
• 1974: Carnival (Freedom)
• 1975: African Nite
• 1975: African Rhythms (Chant du Monde)
• 1976: Perspective (Denon)
• 1976: Randy Weston (Pausa Records
  Pausa Records
  Pausa Records was a jazz record label, active circa 1975-1986. The name was derived from the fact that it was the U.S.A. division of the Italian record company Produttori Associati In Italy Produttori Associati was also known for soundtrack albums of music from Italian films.Many of its releases...
  
  )
• 1978: Rhythms-Sounds Piano (Cora)
• 1980: The Healers
  The Healers (album)
  The Healers is the thirteenth album by David Murray to be released on the Italian Black Saint label. It was released in 1987 and features duo performances by Murray and Randy Weston.-Reception:...
  
  with David Murray
  David Murray (jazz musician)
  David Murray is an American jazz musician. Murray plays mainly tenor saxophone and sometimes bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s.-Biography:...
  
   (Black Saint)
• 1984: Blue (Arch)
• 1989: Portraits of Duke Ellington (Verve)
• 1989: Portraits of Thelonious Monk (Verve)
• 1989: Self Portraits (Verve)
• 1991: Spirits of Our Ancestors
  Spirits of Our Ancestors
  Spirits Of Our Ancestors is an album by pianist, Randy Weston, and was recorded in 1991. While all of the compositions were penned by Weston himself, the music on the album is more specifically a collaborative arranging effort between Weston and arranger Melba Liston...
  
  (Verve)
• 1993: Volcano Blues (Verve/Gitanes)
• 1994: Marrakech in the Cool of the Evening (Verve/Gitanes)
• 1995: Saga (Verve)
• 1997: Earth Birth [featuring Montreal String Orchestra] (Verve)
• 1998: Khepera (Verve)
• 1999: Spirit! The Power of Music (Arkadia)
• 2002: Ancient Future (Mutable)
• 2004: Nuit Africa (Enja Records
  Enja Records
  Enja Records is a German jazz record label based in Munich, Germany. It was founded by jazz enthusiasts Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber in 1971....
  
  )
• 2006: Zep Tepi (Random Chance)
• 2009: The Storyteller (Motéma Music
  Motéma Music
  Motéma Music is an American record label focused on jazz and world music, as well as other creative projects by virtuosic musicians who also compose. It was founded by Jana Herzen in 2003, and is now based in Harlem, New York City...
  
  )

As sideman

With Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

• Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert
  Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert
  Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert is a live album by jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus recorded at the Philharmonic hall of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1972 and released on the Columbia label...
  
  (Columbia, 1972)

External links

• Randy Weston official site
• "Pianist Randy Weston performs 'The Healers' " for the WGBH series, Say Brother
• "Profile: Randy Weston" by Arnold Jay Smith, (Jazz.com)
• Randy Weston with Gnawa musicians video
• Randy Weston Interview at allaboutjazz.com