African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston

Refiguring American Music

by Randy Weston, Willard Jenkins

The pianist, composer, and bandleader Randy Weston is one of the world’s most influential jazz musicians and a remarkable storyteller whose career has spanned five continents and more than six decades. Packed with fascinating anecdotes, African Rhythms is Weston’s life story, as told by him to the music journalist Willard Jenkins. It encompasses Weston’s childhood in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood—where his parents and other members of their generation imbued him with pride in his African heritage—and his introduction to jazz and early years as a musician in the artistic ferment of mid-twentieth-century New York. His music has taken him around the he has performed in eighteen African countries, in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, in the Canterbury Cathedral, and at the grand opening of the Bibliotheca The New Library of Alexandria. Africa is at the core of Weston’s music and spirituality. He has traversed the continent on a continuous quest to learn about its musical traditions, produced its first major jazz festival, and lived for years in Morocco, where he opened a popular jazz club, the African Rhythms Club, in Tangier. Weston’s narrative is replete with tales of the people he has met and befriended, and with whom he has worked. He describes his unique partnerships with Langston Hughes, the musician and arranger Melba Liston, and the jazz scholar Marshall Stearns, as well as his friendships and collaborations with Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Billy Strayhorn, Max Roach, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, the novelist Paul Bowles, the Cuban percussionist Candido Camero, the Ghanaian jazz artist Kofi Ghanaba, the Gnawa musicians of Morocco, and many others. With African Rhythms , an international jazz virtuoso continues to create cultural history.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Jazz, Nonfiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Randy Weston is an internationally renowned pianist, composer, and bandleader living in Brooklyn, New York. He has made more than forty albums and performed throughout the world. Weston has been inducted into the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame, designated a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, and named Jazz Composer of the Year three times by DownBeat magazine. He is the recipient of many other honors and awards, including France’s Order of Arts and Letters, the Black Star Award from the Arts Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana, and a five-night tribute at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Reviews

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anytime a jazz autobiography summons you to play the music being written about, it must be deemed a success. Randy's autobiography is unorthodox in the sense that the focus is not overly detailed on the subject, the focal point is Randy's quest to center himself in the spirit of Africa. This he manages to do spiritually, musically and even for awhile physically. There are no scandalous details about himself or others. No salacious stories about sexual exploits or drug abuse. In fact his personal life is very sparsely explored. Hopefully that is not what one would be looking for.

The book has a real spiritual feel to it and that has been Randy's mission since he first became interested in jazz music. He was always on a spiritual quest to understand and connect what we call jazz to its' African beginnings. And that is really the direction of this very good read. He takes the reader around the world to all the places he has played in, some of them very unusual. As he shares these scenes, he is consistently revealing his thoughts about the motivation behind his compositions and what he was trying to accomplish musically, both through his writing and his performances. "As I've always stressed in interviews and whenever I've spoken in public, my whole life I have been reading about and immersing myself in Africa. I have been forever fascinated by and deeply interested in the history of Africa, the current problems of Africa, the triumphs of the African people, the political situation in Africa...and that interest came long before I made my first trip there." p. 82

Randy is probably one of the most underrated jazz artists around. And it is sad, because his commitment to Africa and the search for the roots of jazz, indeed all music may be the cause of this. He is sure this is the reason he is not often invited to the mainstream jazz clubs. "My music is based in African culture.....The point is that this is our culture, it's not just music....and it's our way of life. I think because of that direction I've had to try and open up other areas in which to perform our music." p. 260. His interest in Africa and ancestral rhythms is unmatched amongst his jazz peers. His allegiance to his mission led him to move from Brooklyn,NY and live in Morocco for 6 years. This, at a time when most jazz players were looking to Europe for their musical inspirations.

I was listening to some of the compositions as I was reading about them, and the ability to do that really gives you a greater appreciation of the music. The use of different instruments on his recordings and how he was using those sounds to tell a story comes alive for the active listener. If you love jazz and are unfamiliar with Randy Weston, this book is a great place to start and thank goodness he includes an extensive discography, something other music biographies fail to do. This book will be a rewarding journey for any reader.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Randy has a very interesting story and he tells it very well. His intelligence, pride and love of music and of people come through. He is as big in spirit as he is in stature.

[A YOGAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Das vorliegende Buch zeichnet das Leben und die künstlerische Vision des Jazzpianisten und Komponisten Randy Weston (1926 - 2018) nach, dessen musikalische Suche von Brooklyn bis nach Afrika führte. Es beleuchtet seine Kindheit in New York, den prägenden Einfluss seines Vaters – der ihm früh ein starkes Bewusstsein für sein afrikanisches Erbe vermittelte – sowie seine Zeit beim Militär. Im Zentrum steht Westons konsequente Entwicklung einer Musik, die Jazz nicht als isolierte amerikanische Kunstform begreift, sondern als Teil einer weitreichenden afrikanischen Diaspora.
Ausführlich dargestellt werden seine Zusammenarbeit mit Weggefährten wie Melba Liston und Langston Hughes, ebenso wie sein langjähriger Aufenthalt in Marokko, der seine musikalische und spirituelle Ausrichtung nachhaltig vertiefte. Ein Leitmotiv des Buches ist die enge Verbindung zwischen modernem Jazz und traditionellen afrikanischen Rhythmen, insbesondere der Gnawa-Musik, die Weston als Quelle rhythmischer, spiritueller und kultureller Kontinuität verstand.
Darüber hinaus bieten die Texte Einblicke in Westons Engagement für kulturelle Selbstbestimmung und die weltweite Sichtbarkeit schwarzer Musiktraditionen. Reflexionen von Mitstreitern und Zeitzeugen erweitern die biografische Perspektive, während eine ausführliche Diskografie das außergewöhnliche Ausmaß und die thematische Geschlossenheit seines Schaffens dokumentiert. Das Buch erweist sich nicht nur als Künstlerbiografie, sondern als musikalische und kulturelle Standortbestimmung der afrikanischen Diaspora im 20. Jahrhundert.

[Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his own words we get to hear what is on his mind, the stories he's chosen to include looking back on his life and his sense of being in the world. Well written and edited with the help of Willard Jenkins (who alludes to more stories told, but omitted for inclusion). Personally I would have enjoyed more of a guided walk through of what the title may be interpreted to suggest. But then again this isn't a history book and he keeps saying he doesn't dwell on the "technical", in favor of a different tone and ambience. Nice to hear about fellow musicians like Booker Ervin and others. At the same time a lot of other musicians whom it may have been interesting to hear his views on don't come up, like Sun Ra. I'm curious to listen to a few records in particular in his ouvre now.