Randolph Edward " Randy" Weston (April 6, 1926 – September 1, 2018) was an American jazz pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection.[Kevin Le Gendre, "Randy Weston 06/04/26 – 01/09/18", Jazzwise, September 3, 2018.]
Weston's piano style owed much to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk,[Ian Patterson, on Randy Weston African Rhythms Sextet: The Storyteller, All About Jazz, November 24, 2010.] whom he cited in a 2018 video as among pianists he counted as influences, as well as Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Earl Hines.[ "Randy Weston talks about his new solo double CD Sound", YouTube video, March 27, 2018.] Beginning in the 1950s, Weston worked often with trombonist and arranger Melba Liston.
Described as "America's African Musical Ambassador", Weston once said: "What I do I do because it's about teaching and informing everyone about our most natural cultural phenomenon. It's really about Africa and her music."[Hakim Abdul-Ali, "Randy Weston: America's African Musical Ambassador", Charleston Chronicle, June 15, 2016.]
Biography
Early life
Randolph Edward Weston was born on April 6, 1926,
to Vivian (
née Moore) and Frank Weston and was raised in Brooklyn, New York, where his father owned a restaurant.
[Robin Kelley (2012). Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, pp. 42–3.] His mother was from
Virginia and his father was of
Jamaican people-Panamanian descent, a staunch
Garveyism, who passed self-reliant values to his son.
[ "Randy Weston Strikes A Chord With His Roots", Gleaner Company, December 4, 2015.][Eric Jackson, "The very Afrocentric Randy Weston", The Panama News, January 14, 2016.] Weston studied classical piano as a child and took dance lessons.
[Kelley (2012), Africa Speaks, America Answers, p. 44.] He graduated from Boys High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he had been sent by his father because of the school's reputation for high standards. Weston took piano lessons from someone known as Professor Atwell who, unlike his former piano teacher Mrs Lucy Chapman, allowed him to play songs outside the classical music repertoire.
[Randy Weston and Willard Jenkins, African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston], Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 25, 26.]
Drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II, Weston served three years from 1944, reaching the rank of staff sergeant, and was stationed for a year in Okinawa Island, Japan.[Giovanni Russonello, "Randy Weston, Pianist Who Traced Roots of Jazz to Africa, Dies at 92", The New York Times, September 1, 2018.][ "A Fireside Chat With Randy Weston", All About Jazz, May 16, 2003.]
Early career: 1940s–'50s
In the late 1940s Weston began performing with Bull Moose Jackson,
Frank Culley and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. In 1951, retreating from the atmosphere of drug use common on the New York jazz scene, Weston moved to Lenox, Massachusetts, in
the Berkshires.
[Giovanni Russonello, "Randy Weston, renowned jazz pianist, dies at 92", San Francisco Chronicle, September 4, 2018.] There at the Music Inn, a venue where jazz historian
Marshall Stearns taught, Weston first learned about the African roots of jazz.
[Ivan Hewett, "Randy Weston interview: 'African music is for the world'", Daily Telegraph, November 9, 2014.] He would return in subsequent summers to perform at the Music Inn,
where he wrote his composition "
Berkshire Blues", interacting with artists and intellectuals such as
Geoffrey Holder, Babatunde Olatunji,
Langston Hughes and
Willis James, about which experience Weston said: "I got a lot of my inspiration for African music by being at Music Inn.... They were all explaining the African-American experience in a global perspective, which was unusual at the time."
[ "The 1950s", Music Inn Archives website.][ "Randy Weston The Music Inn", Berkshire Jazz, September 29, 2011. YouTube video.]
Weston worked with Kenny Dorham in 1953, and in 1954 with Cecil Payne, before forming his own trio and quartet and releasing his debut recording as a leader in 1954, Cole Porter in a Modern Mood. Weston was voted New Star Pianist in DownBeat magazine's International Critics' Poll of 1955.[Njoroge Njoroge, Chocolate Surrealism: Music, Movement, Memory, and History in the Circum-Caribbean, University Press of Mississippi, 2016, p. 103.] Melba Liston, as well as playing trombone on the record, provided excellent arrangements for a sextet playing several of Weston's best compositions: the title track, "Earth Birth", "Babe's Blues", "Pam's Waltz", and others.
1960s–70s
In the 1960s, Weston's music prominently incorporated African elements, as shown on the large-scale suite
Uhuru Afrika (1960, with the participation of poet
Langston Hughes) and
Highlife (full title:
Music from the New African Nations featuring the Highlife), the latter recorded in 1963, two years after Weston traveled for the first time to Africa, as part of a U.S. cultural exchange programme to
Lagos,
Nigeria[Meg Sullivan, "UCLA historian sings praises of Afro-Jazz pioneers", UCLA Newsroom, March 8, 2012.] (the contingent also including Langston Hughes, musicians
Lionel Hampton and Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and singers
Nina Simone and
Brock Peters).
[Valerie Wilmer, "Back to the African heartbeat" (interview with Randy Weston), in Jazz People, London: Allison and Busby, 1970, pp. 83, 85.] On both these albums he teamed up with the arranger
Melba Liston.
Uhuru Afrika, or
Freedom Africa, is considered a historic landmark album that celebrates several new African countries obtaining their Independence.
[The Independent Ear, "50 Years Later: A Landmark recording session", Open Sky Jazz, February 27, 2010.]
In addition, during these years, his band often featured the tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin. Weston covered the Nigerian Bobby Benson's piece "Niger Mambo", which included Caribbean and jazz elements within a Highlife style, and 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, where he decided to settle, running his African Rhythms Club in Tangier[Jeremy D. Goodwin, "Jazz pianist's musical heart has an African pulse", The Boston Globe, April 16, 2013.] for five years, from 1967 to 1972. He said in a 2015 interview: "We had everything in there from Chicago blues singers to singers from the Congo.... The whole idea was to trace African people wherever we are and what we do with music."[Matt Stieb, "Randy Weston On His Trailblazing Jazz Career", San Antonio Current, May 20, 2015.]
In 1972, he produced Blue Moses for CTI Records, a best-selling record on which he plays electric keyboard. As he explained in a July 2018 interview, "We were still living in Tangier, so my son and I came from Tangier to do the recording, but when I got there, Creed Taylor said his formula is electric piano. I was not happy with that, but it was my only hit record. People loved it."[Frank J. Oteri, "Randy Weston: Music is Life Itself", NewMusicBox, August 1, 2018.] In the summer of 1975, he played at the Festival of Tabarka in Tunisia, North Africa (later known as the Tabarka Jazz Festival), accompanied by his son Azzedin Weston on percussion, with other notable acts including Dizzy Gillespie.
In 1977, Weston participated in FESTAC, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, held in Lagos, Nigeria;[ "Autobiography", Randy Weston website.][Gregg Reese, "Pianist Randy Weston passes away at age 92", Our Weekly, September 6, 2018.] other artists appearing there included Osibisa, Miriam Makeba, Bembeya Jazz, Louis Moholo, Dudu Pukwana, Donald Byrd, Stevie Wonder and Sun Ra.[ "The History of the World Festival of Black Arts & Culture / FESTAC", Afropop, 20 January 2011.]
Later career
For a long stretch Weston recorded infrequently on smaller record labels. He also made a two-CD recording
The Spirits of Our Ancestors (recorded 1991, released 1992), which featured arrangements by his long-time collaborator
Melba Liston. The album contained new, expanded versions of many of his well-known pieces and featured an ensemble including some African musicians, with guests such as
Dizzy Gillespie and
Pharoah Sanders also contributing. The music director was saxophonist
Talib Kibwe (also known as T. K. Blue), who subsequently continued in that role.
[ "T.K. Blue", Randy Weston African Rhythms.] The Spirits of Our Ancestors has been described as "one of the most imaginative explorations of 'world jazz' ever recorded."
[
]
Weston produced a series of albums in a variety of formats: solo, trio, mid-sized groups, and collaborations with the Gnawa musicians of Morocco. His most popular compositions include "Hi-Fly", which he said was inspired by his experience of being 6' 8" and looking down at the ground, "Little Niles", named for his son (who was later known as Azzedin), "African Sunrise", "Blue Moses", "The Healers", and "Berkshire Blues". Weston's compositions have frequently been recorded by such prominent musicians as Abdullah Ibrahim,[ "Dollar Brand – Reflections" (1965), AllMusic.] Houston Person,[ "Houston Person – Very Personal" (1981) at Discogs.] and Booker Ervin, among others.[Matt Collar, "Structurally Sound Review", AllMusic. Retrieved December 9, 2010.]
A five-night celebration of Weston's music took place at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1995, featuring gnawa musicians and a duet with saxophonist David Murray.[Rob Adams, "Obituary - Randy Weston, jazz musician", The Glasgow Herald, September 6, 2018.]
In 2002, Weston performed with bassist James Lewis for the inauguration of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt. During the same year, Weston performed with Gnawa musicians at Canterbury Cathedral at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[ "Major events and cultural activities", Randy Weston website.][ Biography, Dar Gnawa.] Weston also played at the Kamigamo Shrine in Japan in 2008.
On June 21, 2009, he participated in a memorial at the Jazz Gallery in New York for Ghanaian drummer Kofi Ghanaba (formerly known as Guy Warren),[ "Kofi Ghanaba: Memorial to the Divine Drummer". Presented by The Jazz Gallery and Jazzmobile as part of "Make Music New York", June 21, 2009.] whose composition "Love, the Mystery of..." Weston used as his signature tune for some 40 years.[Weston and Jenkins, African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston (2010), p. 120.]
In 2013, Sunnyside released Weston's album The Roots of the Blues, a duo session with tenor saxophonist Billy Harper. On November 17, 2014, as part of the London Jazz Festival, Weston played a duo concert with Harper at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Kevin Le Gendre in his review said the two musicians reached "the kind of advanced conversational intimacy only master players achieve."[ "Randy Weston and Billy Harper – Deeper Than Blue at QEH, EFG London Jazz Festival", Jazzwise, November 18, 2014.]
In 2015, Weston was artist-in-residence at The New School in New York, participating in a lecture series, performing, and mentoring students.
Weston celebrated his 90th birthday in 2016[Tom Reney, "Randy Weston — HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY!", New England Public Radio, April 7, 2016.] with a concert at Carnegie Hall,[ "Carnegie Hall Presents Randy Weston's African Rhythms — Randy Weston's 90th Birthday Celebration", Carnegie Hall, March 19, 2016.] among other activities,[Laura Sell, "Happy 90th Birthday to Randy Weston", News from Duke University Press, April 6, 2016.][ "Happy 90th Birthday Randy Weston!", The Perlich Post, April 6, 2016.][ "Randy Weston's 90th Birthday Tribute/Celebration", Patch (Bed-Stuy), March 25, 2016.][ "Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival: Randy Weston African Rhythms Quartet", Brooklyn Public Library, April 26, 2016.][ "An Afternoon with Randy Weston", Dweck Center, April 30, 2016.] and continued thereafter to tour and speak internationally. He performed at the Gnawa Festival in Morocco in April 2016,[Jane Cornwell, "Randy Weston and Christian Scott Get Morocco's Gnawa Festival Grooving", Jazzwise, May 31, 2016.] took part in the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, on June 2,[ "All About Randy Weston", Spoleto Festival USA, April 7, 2016.][Vincent Harris, "Pianist Randy Weston seeks the heart of music in Africa", Charleston City Paper, June 1, 2016.][Celeste McMaster, "Randy Weston African Rhythms Sextet takes audiences on an African journey of artistry", Charleston City Paper , June 3, 2016.][Chris Haire, "Spoleto continues its ambitious exploration of the black experience and the spectre of racism", Charleston City Paper, June 8, 2016.] and was among the opening acts at the 50th Montreux Jazz Festival.[ "A Fusion of Legends and Prodigies at Montreux Jazz Festival", Euronews, July 4, 2016.] In July 2016, he was a keynote speaker at the 32nd World Conference of the International Society for Music Education in Glasgow.[ "Keynote Speakers", 32nd World Conference, International Society for Music Education, Glasgow, UK, July 24–29, 2016.]
An African Nubian Suite (2017) is a recording of a concert at the Institute of African American Affairs of New York University on April 8, 2012, Easter Sunday, with Cecil Bridgewater, Robert Trowers, Howard Johnson, T. K. Blue, Billy Harper, Alex Blake, Lewis Nash, Candido, Ayodele Maakheru, Lhoussine Bouhamidy, Saliou Souso, Martin Kwaku Obeng, Min Xiao-Fen, Tanpani Demda Cissoko, Neil Clarke and Ayanda Clarke, and the poet Jayne Cortez.[ "Randy Weston An African Nubian Suite", Africana Studies, New York University.][Caryn Robbins, "Randy Weston to Release New 2-CD Set 'The African Nubian Suite' 1/20", Broadway World, November 22, 2016.] Describing it as an "epic work", the Black Grooves reviewer wrote that The African Nubian Suite "traces the history of the human race through music, with a narration by inspirational speaker Wayne B. Chandler, and introductions and stories by Weston in his role as griot.... Stressing the unity of humankind, Weston incorporates music that 'stretches across millennia'—from the Nubian region along the Nile Delta, to the holy city of Touba in Senegal, to China's Shang dynasty, as well as African folk music and African American blues.... In these troubling times when our nation is divided by politics, race and religion, Weston uses The African Nubian Suite as a vehicle to remind us of our common heritage: 'We all come from the same place – we all come from Africa.[Brenda Nelson-Strauss, "Randy Weston African Rhythms – The African Nubian Suite", Black Grooves, February 1, 2017.] Coinciding with his 91st birthday, Weston played four shows at the Jazz Standard, April 6–April 9, 2017, performing music from An African Nubian Suite.
Weston's last release, the double-CD set titled Sound (2018), was a recording of a solo piano concert that took place at the Hotel Montreux Palace, Switzerland, on July 17 and 18, 2001.[ "SOUND solo piano", Discography, Randy Weston African Rhythms.] In a review for The Wall Street Journal, Larry Blumenfeld wrote: "If these two discs amount to a grand gesture, Mr. Weston communicates most and best via small details. The power of a single note. The meaning of a single note repeated many times. The force of a crashing left-hand figure. The tension held between two dissonant tones or within an unexpected silence. All of which are packed into the three-plus minutes of 'Love, The Mystery Of,' which was composed by the Ghanaian drummer Kofi Ghanaba (then known as Guy Warren) for Mr. Weston’s 1963 album 'Highlife,' and now, more than a half-century later, provides this album’s most riveting moments."[Larry Blumenfeld, "‘Sound’ by Randy Weston Review: Trying to Capture Joy and Intensity", Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2018.]
Randy Weston died at his home in Brooklyn on the morning of September 1, 2018, aged 92.[Nate Chinen, "Pianist Randy Weston, An Eloquent Spokesman For Jazz's Bond with African Culture, Dies at 92", WBGO, September 2, 2016.]
Personal life
Weston's first marriage, to Mildred Mosley, ended in divorce. His son Azzedin having predeceased him, Weston was survived by his wife Fatoumata Mbengue-Weston, whom he met in 1994;[Weston and Jenkins, African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston (2010), p. 28.] three daughters, Cheryl, Pamela and Kim; seven grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.
Autobiography
In October 2010, Duke University Press published African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston, "composed by Randy Weston, arranged by Willard Jenkins". It was hailed as "an important addition to the jazz historiography and a long anticipated read for fans of this giant of African American music, aka jazz."[Ian Patterson, Review of The Autobiography Of Randy Weston: African Rhythms, All About Jazz, October 14, 2010.] Reviewer Larry Reni Thomas wrote: "Randy Weston’s long-anticipated, much-talked-about, consciousness-raising, African-centered autobiography, African Rhythms, is a serious breath of fresh air and is a much-needed antidote in this world of mediocre musicians, and men. He takes the reader on a wonderful, exciting journey from America to Africa and back with the ease of a person who loved every minute of it. The book is hard to put down and is an engaging, pleasing literary work that is worthy of being required reading in any history or literature school course."[Larry Reni Thomas, "Book Review: African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston by Randy Weston and Willard Jenkins", eJazzNews, October 12, 2011.]
Archives
In 2015–16, Weston's archives were acquired by the Jazz Research Initiative in collaboration with the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Loeb Music Library, the Harvard College Library, and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.[ "The Randy Weston Collection", Jazz Research Initiative at the Hutchins Center.] The Randy Weston Collection comprises hundreds of manuscripts, scores, videos, films, photographs, and more than 1,000 tape recordings, and among its highlights are correspondence with Langston Hughes and Alvin Ailey; photographs with Dizzy Gillespie, Pharoah Sanders, Muhammad Ali, and Cornel West; and records of Weston's African Rhythms Club in Tangier, Morocco, from 1967 to 1972.
Awards and honors
-
1997: Order of Arts and Letters, France
[Yaa-Lengi Ngemi, "Randy Weston: A Giant of Jazz, a Giant of a Man", Huffington Post, December 2, 2015.Updated December 6, 2017.]
-
1999: Swing Journal Award, Japan
-
2000: Black Star Award, Arts Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana (ACRAG)
-
2001: NEA Jazz Master
-
2006: Honorary degree, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
-
2009: Giants of Jazz concert in his honor with Monty Alexander, Geri Allen, Cyrus Chestnut, Barry Harris, Mulgrew Miller and Billy Taylor.
[Lee Mergner, "Giants of Jazz Concert Honors Randy Weston", Jazz Times, October 10, 2009.]
-
2011: Guggenheim Fellowship award.
[ "Randy Weston" , Fellows, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.][ "Randy Weston captures prestigious Guggenheim", Open Sky Jazz, May 1, 2011.]
-
2011: Honored by King Mohammed VI of Morocco for "lifelong engagement with Morocco and deep commitment to bringing Morocco's Gnaoua music tradition to the attention of the Western world"
[Antoine du Rocher, "Randy Weston honored by King Mohammed VI of Morocco", CultureKiosque - Jazznet, June 10, 2011.]
-
2011: Honored by Congressional Black Caucus Foundation at the Jazz Issue Forum and Concert during the 40th Annual Legislative Conference
[Rep. John Conyers Jr., "Honoring Nea Jazz Master Randy Weston", Capitolwords, Congressional Record Vol. 157, no. 131, September 7, 2011.][ "Randy Weston, Ben Williams Headline 2011 Congressional Black Caucus Jazz Concert in DC", ASCAP, September 28, 2011.]
-
2012: Honorary degree of Doctor of Music from Colby College
[ "Randy Weston - National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and 2011 Guggenheim Fellow", Colby News & Events, May 20, 2012.]
-
2013: Honorary degree, New England Conservatory of Music
[ "NEC Announces 2013 Honorary Degree Recipients", New England Conservatory, March 25, 2013.]
-
2014: Doris Duke Artist Award
[ "Randy Weston", Doris Duke Artist Award, 2014.]
-
2014: JJA Jazz Award, Trio or Duo of the Year: Randy Weston – Billy Harper
[ "Trio or Duo of the Year: Randy Weston — Billy Harper", 2014 JJA Jazz Awards for Musical Achievement.][ "2014 JJA Jazz Awards", JazzOnline, April 16, 2014.]
-
2015: JJA Jazz Award, Lifetime Achievement in Jazz
[ "Lifetime Achievement in Jazz: Randy Weston", 2015 JJA Jazz Awards for Musical Achievement.]
-
2016: Malcolm X Black Unity award, National Association of Kawaida Organizations (NAKO) with the International African Arts Festival (IAAF)
[ "NAKO 47th Annual Malcolm X Black Unity Awards Program", Our Time Press, Vol. 21, No. 20, May 12–18, 2016, p. 6.]
-
2016: DownBeat Hall of Fame.
[ "Washington, Iyer Among Winners in 2016 DownBeat Critics Poll", DownBeat, July 1, 2016.]
-
2016: United States Artists Fellowship Award
[ "Reeves, Weston Among USA Fellowship Recipients", DownBeat, November 17, 2016.]
-
2017: National Jazz Museum in Harlem Legends Award
[Russ Musto, "National Jazz Museum in Harlem Benefit Spotlights Young Stars", DownBeat, June 19, 2017.]
Discography
As leader
-
1954: Cole Porter in a Modern Mood (Riverside) - 10-inch LP
-
1955: The Randy Weston Trio (Riverside) - 10-inch LP
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1955: Get Happy with the Randy Weston Trio (Riverside)
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1956: With These Hands... (Riverside)
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1955–56: Trio and Solo (Riverside) - includes all tracks on The Randy Weston Trio
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1956: Jazz à la Bohemia (Riverside)
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1956: The Modern Art of Jazz by Randy Weston (Dawn) - also released as How High the Moon (Biograph)
-
1957: Piano á la Mode (Jubilee Records)
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1958: New Faces at Newport (MetroJazz)
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1959: Little Niles (United Artists)
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1959: Destry Rides Again (United Artists)
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1959: Live at the Five Spot (United Artists)
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1960: Uhuru Afrika (Roulette Records)
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1963: Highlife (Colpix Records)
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1964: Randy (Bakton) - later released as African Cookbook (Atlantic Records) in 1972
-
1965: Berkshire Blues (Freedom Records 1977)
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1964–65: Blues (Trip)
-
1966: Monterey '66 (Verve Records)
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1969: African Cookbook (Polydor Records)
-
1969: Niles Littlebig (Polydor)
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1972: Blue Moses (CTI Records)
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1973: Tanjah (Polydor)
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1974: Carnival (Freedom)
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1974: Informal Solo Piano (Hi-Fly)
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1975: Blues to Africa (Freedom)
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1975: African Nite (Owl)
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1975: African Rhythms (Chant du Monde)
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1976: Randy Weston Meets Himself (Pausa Records)
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1976: Perspective (Denon Records)
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1978: Rhythms-Sounds Piano (Cora)
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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)
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1989: Self Portraits: The Last Day (Verve)
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1991: The Spirits of Our Ancestors (Verve)
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1992: Marrakech in the Cool of the Evening (Verve/Gitanes)
-
1992: The Splendid Master Gnawa Musicians of Morocco (Verve/Gitanes)
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1993: Volcano Blues (Verve/Gitanes)
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1995: Saga (Verve)
-
1997: Earth Birth featuring (Verve)
-
1998: Khepera (Verve)
-
1999: Spirit! The Power of Music (Arkadia Jazz)
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2002: Ancient Future (Mutable)
-
2003: ''Live In St. Lucia (image ID-3007RW)
-
2004: Nuit Africa (Enja Records)
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2006: Zep Tepi (Random Chance)
-
2009: The Storyteller (Motéma)
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2013: The Roots of the Blues (Sunnyside)
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2017: The African Nubian Suite (African Rhythms)
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2018: Sound — Solo Piano (African Rhythms)
As sideman
With Roy Brooks
-
Duet in Detroit (Enja, 1984 1993)
With Charles Mingus
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Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert (Columbia, 1972)
External links
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Randy Weston official site
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"Randy Weston: Hi-Fly, Little Niles and Africa (From The Archives)", JazzProfiles, October 7, 2013
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"Profile: Randy Weston" by Arnold Jay Smith
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Randy Weston video interview at underyourskin
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"Black History Special: Jazz Legend Randy Weston on His Life and Celebration of 'African Rhythms, Democracy Now!, February 20, 2012
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Transcript of conversation with Randy Weston, National Endowment for the Arts, April 21, 2011.
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Yaa-Lengi Ngemi, "Randy Weston: A Giant of Jazz, a Giant of a Man", Huffington Post, December 2, 2015.
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Bilal Qureshi, "Even As A Musical Ambassador For The U.S., Randy Weston Has Always Played For Africa", NPR, February 28, 2017
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"Randy Weston: Music is Life Itself", NewMusicBox, a conversation with Frank J. Oteri featuring video footage of Weston's comments, published August 1, 2018.
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Tom Reney, "Randy Weston, Jazz Giant, 1926-2018", Jazz à la Mode, New England Public Radio, September 3, 2018.
