Randy Weston

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Randy Weston (2007)

Randolph E. "Randy" Weston (born April 6, 1926 in Brooklyn , New York City ; † September 1, 2018 there ) was an American jazz pianist and composer.

Live and act

Weston began his career in the late 1940s in the rhythm and blues bands of Bull Moose Jackson , Frank "Floorshow" Culley, and Cleanhead Vinson . In 1949 he worked for Art Blakey , in 1953 for Kenny Dorham , in 1954 for Cecil Payne . He then worked for the record label Riverside (1954-55), then founded his own combo , with which he recorded a first album for the Dawn label , and also gave lessons. He developed an interest in African culture, participated in the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 , and visited Nigeria in 1961 and 1963, and West and North Africa in 1967. In 1968 he settled in Morocco and then - interrupted by a stay in the USA (1972/73), where he a. a. appeared as a guest soloist with Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert - to live in Europe. He lived in Morocco again in the mid-1980s, only to return to the USA in the early 1990s.

Some of Weston's compositions became standards as early as the 1950s, such as Hi-Fly and Little Niles . He was one of the first African American musicians to not only recite African percussion, but also African (anti-colonialist) recitation in Swahili on his record Uhuru Africa (1960, with Clark Terry , Slide Hampton , Yusef Lateef , Armando Peraza and Babatunde Olatunji ) and on Highlife (1963, with Booker Ervin ) also included African pop music in their works. Later albums like The Spirit of Our Ancestors (1991, with Dizzy Gillespie and Pharoah Sanders ) reflect the music of the Moroccan Gnawa fraternities. Weston has worked with arranger Melba Liston on his projects for more than 30 years . His son, percussionist Azzedin Weston , has contributed to some of his productions.

In 2001 he received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship , and in 2014 the $ 275,000 Doris Duke Artist Award

Randy Weston's archives, containing numerous manuscripts, scores, recordings, photos and extensive correspondence, have been owned by the library of Harvard University in the United States since 2016 .

Discography (as band leader)

  • 1954: Cole Porter in a Modern Mood (Riverside) - 10-inch LP
  • 1955: The Randy Weston Trio (Riverside) - 10-inch LP
  • 1955: Get Happy with the Randy Weston Trio (Riverside)
  • 1956: With These Hands ... (Riverside)
  • 1955–56: Trio and Solo (Riverside) - with all pieces by The Randy Weston Trio
  • 1956: Jazz à la Bohemia (Riverside)
  • 1956: The Modern Art of Jazz by Randy Weston (Dawn) - also published as How High the Moon (Biograph)
  • 1957: Piano á la Mode (Jubilee)
  • 1958: New Faces at Newport (MetroJazz)
  • 1959: Little Niles (United Artists)
  • 1959: Destry Rides Again (United Artists)
  • 1959: Live at the Five Spot (United Artists)
  • 1960: Uhuru Africa (Roulette)
  • 1963: Highlife (Colpix)
  • 1964: Randy (Bakton) - later published as African Cookbook (Atlantic) in 1972
  • 1965: Berkshire Blues (Freedom [1977])
  • 1964–65: Blues (Trip)
  • 1966: Monterey '66 (Verve)
  • 1969: African Cookbook (Polydor)
  • 1969: Niles Littlebig (Polydor)
  • 1972: Blue Moses (CTI)
  • 1973: Tanjah (Polydor)
  • 1974: Carnival (Freedom)
  • 1974: Informal Solo Piano (Hi-Fly)
  • 1975: Blues to Africa (Freedom)
  • 1975: African Nite (Owl)
  • 1975: African Rhythms (Chant du Monde)
  • 1976: Randy Weston Meets Himself (Pausa)
  • 1976: Perspective (Denon)
  • 1978: Rhythms-Sounds Piano (Cora)
  • 1984: Blue (Arch)
  • 1987: The Healers (Black Saint) - with David Murray
  • 1989: Portraits of Thelonious Monk: Well You Needn't (Verve)
  • 1989: Portraits of Duke Ellington: Caravan (Verve)
  • 1989: Self Portraits: The Last Day (Verve)
  • 1991: The Spirits of Our Ancestors (Verve)
  • 1992: Marrakech in the Cool of the Evening (Verve / Gitanes)
  • 1992: The Splendid Master Gnawa Musicians of Morocco (Verve / Gitanes)
  • 1993: Volcano Blues (Verve / Gitanes)
  • 1995: Saga (Verve)
  • 1997: Earth Birth [with the Montreal String Orchestra] (Verve)
  • 1998: Khepera (Verve)
  • 1999: Spirit! The Power of Music (Arkadia Jazz)
  • 2002: Ancient Future (Mutable)
  • 2004: Nuit Africa (Enja)
  • 2006: Zep Tepi (Random Chance)
  • 2009: The Storyteller (Motéma)
  • 2013: The Roots of the Blues (Sunnyside)
  • 2017: The African Nubian Suite (African Rhythms)
  • 2018: Sound - Solo Piano (African Rhythms)

literature

Web links

Commons : Randy Weston  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Video

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary New York Times September 1, 2018
  2. ^ Doris Duke Artist Award 2014 in JazzTimes
  3. ↑ On the death of Randy Weston: Africa's Ambassador to America Report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of September 4, 2018, accessed on September 8, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Weston, Randy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weston, Randolph E.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City
DATE OF DEATH 1st September 2018
Place of death Brooklyn , New York City