An Investigation of the Life, Influences, and Music of Randy Weston by Jason Squinobal, Ph.D.
[email protected] Assistant Professor of Music; Director of Instrumental Music, Virginia Wesleyan University, Virginia Beach, Virginia Introduction In an article written in 1973 for the journal, Black Perspectives in Music, J.H. Kwanbena Nketia highlights the important and continual relationship between African and African American music. Nketia states “The relationship between African and Afro-American music is dynamic and unbroken at the conceptual level in spite of the differences in materials to which these concepts are applied.”1 This statement articulates the importance of African music in the creation of African American music, at its inception, and continued development of African American music in modern times. This relationship has not always been recognized in past music scholarship. Nketia says, “The importance of the music of Africa in historical studies of Afro-American music has tended to be seen more as providing a point of departure than as something that continues to be relevant to the present.”2 There are studies that give African music credit for the continual influence it has had on African American music; however, Nketia’s words are as relevant today as they were in 1973. It is my intention to present a study that is sensitive to the claims made by Nketia. The work presented here identifies the continued application of traditional African musical and cultural traits in jazz composition and performance. Many jazz musicians utilized traditional African traits in their music. Randy Weston was not the first musician to do so, however jazz fans and scholars will remember him because his experiences, influences, and music clearly demonstrate the importance traditional African culture played in his life.