Content deleted Content added
m Removing from Category:20th-century African-American men now a container category per disc using Cat-a-lot |
→Early career: 1940s–50s: minor c/e |
||
Line 33:
Drafted into the [[United States Army|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]], Japan.<ref name=Russonello>Giovanni Russonello, [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/obituaries/randy-weston-dead.html "Randy Weston, Pianist Who Traced Roots of Jazz to Africa, Dies at 92"], ''The New York Times'', September 1, 2018.</ref><ref name=Patterson /> On his return to Brooklyn he ran his father's restaurant, which was frequented by many jazz musicians. Among Weston's piano heroes were [[Count Basie]], [[Nat King Cole]], [[Art Tatum]], [[Duke Ellington]], and his cousin [[Wynton Kelly]], but it was [[Thelonious Monk]] who made the biggest impact, as Weston described in a 2003 interview: "When I first heard Monk, I heard Monk with [[Coleman Hawkins]]. When I heard Monk play, his sound, his direction, I just fell in love with it. I spent about three years just hanging out with Monk. I would pick him up in the car and bring him to Brooklyn and he was a great master because, for me, he put the magic back into the music."<ref>[https://www.allaboutjazz.com/a-fireside-chat-with-randy-weston-randy-weston-by-aaj-staff.php&page=1 "A Fireside Chat With Randy Weston"], ''All About Jazz'', May 16, 2003.</ref>
===Early career:
In the late 1940s Weston began performing with [[
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]]''. He was voted New Star Pianist in ''[[DownBeat]]'' magazine's International Critics' Poll of 1955.<ref name=Moon /> Several fine albums followed, with the best being ''[[Little Niles]]'' near the end of that decade, dedicated to his children Niles and Pamela, with all the tunes being written in 3/4 time.<ref>Njoroge Njoroge, [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hJtqDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT102&lpg=PT102&dq=%22pam%27s+waltz%22&source=bl&ots=UxxUIaGMxV&sig=m7D08rmPaj2cvLmT93feaQksf9w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjiqK3m0K3dAhWBaVAKHa1bC-IQ6AEwK3oECBAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22pam's%20waltz%22&f=false ''Chocolate Surrealism: Music, Movement, Memory, and History in the Circum-Caribbean''], University Press of Mississippi, 2016, p. 103.</ref> [[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.
| |||