Randy Weston Biography
Randolph Weston, 6 April 1926, New York City, New York, USA. Weston grew up in Brooklyn and in the late 40s ran a restaurant that was frequented by many of the city's leading bebop musicians. Deciding to pursue a musical career himself, he played piano with various R&B bands (including a record session with the Clovers) and also worked with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Kenny Dorham and Cecil Payne. One of the first artists signed to Riverside Records, his debut session, in April 1954, comprised a set of Cole Porter tunes. Later Riverside sessions included a solo album and a trio recording with Art Blakey on drums. Long fascinated by all things African, Weston recorded Uhuru Afrika in 1960 - a big band suite with lyrics by Langston Hughes and arrangements by Melba Liston: players included Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef, Max Roach and Babatunde Olatunji. In 1961 he travelled to Nigeria with other USA artists to appear at an arts festival in Lagos, and returned again for a lecture tour in 1963.
In the early 60s he led a group that featured Booker Ervin and (later) Ed Blackwell, releasing Highlife and African Cookbook. He also recorded the solo/trio Berkshire Blues for Duke Ellington's projected label, but this never materialized and the sessions finally appeared on the Freedom label some 13 years later. Weston started his own label, Bakton, but it quickly folded and, discouraged by the music scene, he left the USA. After a 14-country tour of North and West Africa, he settled in Tangier in 1968, where he ran the African Rhythms Club for several years. Returning to the USA in the early 70s, he released two big band albums, the jazz funk Blue Moses and Tanjah, but subsequent releases have concentrated almost exclusively on solo piano and have included tributes to Ellington and Thelonious Monk, his major piano mentors. Notable exceptions are a duo album with David Murray and The Spirits Of Our Ancestors, which again used arrangements by Liston and features guest artists Dizzy Gillespie, Dewey Redman and Pharoah Sanders. A powerful player (he is over six-and-a-half feet tall!), Weston is adept at using the piano percussively, although he is also a talented melodist who has written several well-known tunes, such as "Hi Fly" and "Little Niles", the latter a 1952 waltz named after his son Azadeen, now a skilled percussionist.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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