The Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University presents: African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston
A book reading and signing with Randy Weston and Willard Jenkins
Packed with fascinating anecdotes, African Rhythms is Randy Weston's life story as told to the music journalist Willard Jenkins. It encompasses Weston's childhood in the Brooklyn neighborhood where his parents imbued him with pride in his African heritage, his introduction to jazz, and his early years as a musician in the artistic ferment of mid-20th Century New York.
Weston has performed in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, in the Canterbury Cathedral, and in eighteen African countries. Indeed, Africa is at the core of Weston's music and spirituality. He has traversed the continent in his 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.
In Weston's narrative, he describes his collaborations with Langston Hughes, the musician and arranger Melba Liston, and the jazz scholar Marshall Stearns, as well as with Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
1899 - 1974
piano
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
1917 - 1993
trumpet
, Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
1904 - 1969
sax, tenor
, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
1917 - 1982
piano
, Billy Strayhorn
Billy Strayhorn
1915 - 1967
piano
, Max Roach
Max Roach
1925 - 2007
drums
, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
1926 - 1991
trumpet
, and many others. With African Rhythms, an international jazz virtuoso continues to create cultural history.
Thursday, February 10, 2011, 7:30pm
301 Philosophy Hall, 116th Street & Amsterdam Ave.
Free and Open to the Public
