“..I think it is a miracle that African and European influences came together to produce jazz. It’s an act of God.” –Randy Weston

photo by Carol Friedman

With over five decades of performance, composition, and teaching, pianist Randy Weston has devoted his life to connecting jazz to its roots in African music and culture, and through his music, translating that connection to western audiences. "Weston has the biggest sound of any jazz pianist since Ellington and Monk, as well as the richest most inventive beat," notes 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." With his African Rhythms Trio, 79-year-old Weston will bring his creative melding of heritage and reverence to the Jazz Bakery for a rare club performance of music that is sure to inspire and inform.

Born in Brooklyn and growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Weston was encouraged by his parents to learn about and take pride in his African roots. His father grew up in Panama but his family was from Jamaica, where education was highly valued, and young Randy was surrounded by a love of African history and culture. He notes that his parents “gave me dignity and let me know that we are a beautiful people, and we have a great heritage.” In addition to instilling pride in African culture, Weston’s parents also insisted that he take music lessons, although early on he felt he had no talent and, given his size (he was six feet tall by age 12), he was more interested in sports. His cousin, the great pianist Wynton Kelly, however, was a source of inspiration. “Wynton had perfect pitch. He could hear anything and play it. He was a genius. What a great, great musician and a beautiful human being.”

Count Basie, Nat King Cole, and Duke Ellington were among Weston’s early influences, as were the musicians who often frequented his father’s West Indian restaurant—Duke Jordan, Errol Garner, Art Tatum, and Willie “The Lion” Smith. He was particularly inspired by Coleman Hawkins, with whom he heard the great pianists Hank Jones, Sir Charles Thompson, and, most critically, Thelonius Monk. "He was the most original I ever heard," Weston recalled. "He played like they must have played in Egypt 5000 years ago… I spent about three years just hanging out with Monk. I would pick him up in the car and bring him to Brooklyn and he was a great master because, for me, he put the magic back into the music.” Weston also notes “hanging out” with Eubie Blake and Bud Powell.

In the 1950s, Randy Weston emerged as an important voice of the new jazz language of bop, melding the traditions of Basie and Ellington with the innovative harmonies and rhythms of Monk and Powell. Named by Down Beat as 1955’s “New Star Pianist,” his approach was described by poet Langston Hughes as “a combination of strength and gentleness, virility and velvet [which] emerges from the keys in an ebb and flow of sound, seemingly as natural as the waves of the sea.” Among his first opportunities were gigs with blues singer Bull Moose Jackson and bop jazz artists Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Art Blakey, Cecil Payne, and Kenny Dorham. He made his first recording as a leader for Riverside Records in 1954, putting a modern spin on Cole Porter (Randy Weston Plays Cole Porter). While playing with Payne and Dorham, he wrote many of his best known compositions, including "Saucer Eyes," "Pam's Waltz," and "Little Niles.” Weston (who is 6' 8") describes his greatest hit, “Hi-Fly,” as a "tale of being my height and looking down at the ground.” In 1957, he first met trombonist/arranger Melba Liston, and thus ignited a musical partnership that spanned over 40 years until Liston’s death in 1999.

Weston was becoming more and more involved in African music, and after two tours of North and West Africa as an ambassador for the U.S. State Department, he relocated to Morocco in 1967. He spent a year in Rabat and six years in Tangier, where he opened the African Rhythms club and cultural center. Weston describes African Rhythms as “an avenue to project and respect traditional African music, and at the same time, bring all the variations of Africa—from Cuba to Brazil to Venezuela to the U.S.—back home.” Although Weston moved to Paris in 1973 (and ultimately returned to New York), his musical mission has remained unchanged—to connect the dots of the African heritage of jazz, clearly articulated on such recordings as African Cookbook, Uhuru Afrika (a suite for big band with poetry by Langston Hughes), and Spirit! The Power of Music. “My band played for audiences from Morocco and Tunisia as far east as Beruit. We played for audiences who had never heard a concert, not to mention a jazz concert…I would say to the audience, ‘This is your music after it crossed the Atlantic, after it came in contact with European civilization. Your music has changed in our hands, but the basic traditions are still the same. This is what happened to your music.’”

Named by Down Beat as Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in 1972, Weston may be better known for his many compositions than for his own performance chops; his works have been recorded by such revered artists as Max Roach, Monty Alexander, Dexter Gordon, Jimmy Heath, Kenny Burrell, Abbey Lincoln, Bobby Hutcherson, Lionel Hampton, and Cannonball Adderly.

During 1990's, Weston released a series of recordings for Verve that displayed his adventurous efforts to bring jazz back to its African roots. "I try to tell stories through music, stories about our heritage, so people can get a deeper understanding of who we are," said Weston. Spirits of our Ancestors (1991) was a musical history of the blues, hailed by Rolling Stone as “the kind of 'jazz' record that, like Miles' Kind Of Blue, connects with anyone who hears it.” In 1993, he teamed up with Melba Liston on Volcano Blues, connecting the origins and destinations of African music, while Khepera (1998) merged African and Chinese music. SPIRIT! The Power of Music(1999) featured the Randy Weston African Rhythms Quintet and the master Gnawa musicians of Morocco. Said Weston, "What was so wonderful was that we had these three religions, Christianity, Islam and Yoruba, in music…It was so spiritual, all this wonderful music together.” Noted Russ Musto (All About Jazz), “No musician has been more devoted to exploring the connection between Afro-American classical music (jazz) and the ancestral spirits and rhythms of the African continent than Randy Weston.”

Weston’s creative output during this period resulted in three Composer of the Year awards from Down Beat (1994, 1996, and 1999). Other honors have included a Grammy nomination for Spirits of Our Ancestors (1993), the French Order of Arts and Letters (1997), Japan’s Swing Journal Award (1999), the Black Star Music Award from the Arts Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana (2000), “Best Artist of the Month” for BET Television (June 2000), a Jazz Masters Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (2001), a five-night tribute at the 1995 Montreal Jazz Festival, and tribute concerts and residencies at Harvard and New York Universities. He recently received the Living Legacy Jazz Award for 2004 from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.

African Rhythms Trio

Randy Weston’s recent explorations have often been in the company of his African Rhythms band, in trio and larger formats (including the 2003 quintet recording, Live in St. Lucia). To the Jazz Bakery he will bring his trio, including bassist Alex Blake and African percussionist Neil Clarke, two virtuosos in their own right.

Alex Blake is a native of Panama where his early childhood was infused with the richness of Central American culture. Moving to Brooklyn at age 7, he developed as a highly versatile musician, and became a major contributor to the fusion movement of the 1970s, playing with drummers Lenny White and Billy Cobham. He developed a reputation as a one-man rhythm section, a perfect collaborator for drummers, and at times throws in some scat singing as well. His sideman credits include Manhattan Transfer and Pharoh Sanders as well as Randy Weston, and with his quintet he has released the recording, Now is the Time: Live at the Knitting Factory (Bubble Core).

Neil Clarke has studied African percussion for over 35 years. His work has covered every genre from folkloric, jazz, and pop, to R& B, gospel, and classical. In addition to Randy Weston, he has worked with Harry Belafonte, Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, Miriam Makeba, Letta Mbulu, Paul Winter, the Spirit Ensemble, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the International African American Ballet, and many others. He performed in the Broadway production of Timbuktu and in the feature film Beat Street, as well as on numerous television appearances.

Randy Weston and African Rhythms make a limited number of club appearances each year. This is a unique opportunity to hear a modern interpreter of the ancient roots of jazz and world music.

“When a brilliant jazz artist explores the sounds of another culture, he can change the course of music history.” –Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune

See Randy Weston’s African Rhythms Trio at the Jazz Bakery, 3223 Helms Av in Los Angeles, May 9-13; visit www.jazzbakery.com for reservations and information.