Pianist Randy Weston Celebrates Jazz As America’s True Classical Music

Pianist Randy Weston has been a regular visitor to Hartford for more than 50 years, from 1950s jam sessions at Hartford Jazz Society president Art Fine’s house in Bloomfield to more recent performances at the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Artists Collective. At 91, Weston is a living legend (a term that’s thrown around too often, but truly applicable here) and a bridge to both the past and future of jazz — African-American classical music, as he calls it.

Weston, who returns to the Artists Collective in Hartford on May 20 for a solo performance, remains incredibly active as a performer (this will be his second Connecticut appearance in the span of a month), as a visitor at schools and colleges, and as a composer; his “African Nubian Suite,” which premiered in 2012, is a sprawling musical, poetic and spiritual excursion into civilizations way older than our own.

Q: Your upcoming performance will be just you, alone, at the piano. When did you start performing solo sets?

A: Really, my solo career began in Switzerland at the Montreux Jazz Festival [in 1974]. Duke Ellington had just passed away. It was my first time in Europe. I did a 10-minute piano solo dedication to Duke. I put together his melodies, his rhythms, just trying to capture the spirit. … People stopped me and said, “Man, you gotta do more piano solo.” In Europe, they like solo piano.

Q: Why is that?

A: I suppose because they created the instrument [laughs].

Q: What do you play when you sit down at the piano, alone or in front of an audience?

A: It’s the moment, the story I want to tell. It can be a combination of things. It could be Africa, it could be the Caribbean, it could be 13th Street [in Greenwich Village], where I wrote “Hi-Fly” [a Weston composition from the the 1950s]. It really varies. I try to capture the spirit of the piano, the place and the audience.

Q: You’ve talked about visiting Thelonious Monk at his house. The first time, Monk said, “Listen to all kinds of music, and come back and see me again.” During the second visit, he played the piano for you for two hours. What was that experience like?

A: It was wonderful. It meant that we had a communication without the spoken word, through vibrations. [Saxophonist] Coleman Hawkins: he was my idol. He’s still my idol. How do you go from [singer] Mamie Smith to Monk? Only Coleman could cover that territory.

I first heard [Monk] with Coleman Hawkins. I said, “Wow, this guy’s playing something different.” I didn’t quite understand what he was doing the first time, I admit, but I figured if he was with Coleman Hawkins, he must be great.

Q: Speaking of Hawkins: you played together at Hartford Jazz Society president Art Fine’s house parties in Bloomfield in the 1950s. What do you recall about the music, the people and the conversations?

A: Art Fine was an exceptional human being. He was really a wonderful guy. In his house, you had the whole thing: the most incredible musicians, the ambiance, the food, the Heublein [spirits]. He introduced me to [pianist/arranger] Gene Rodgers, who played on Coleman Hawkins’ very famous “Body and Soul.” I met [trumpeter] Roy Eldridge there. I met Coleman Hawkins at [Fine’s] place, you know. It was very exciting.

Q: What was the music like?

A: Typical jam sessions, everything from [George and Ira Gershwin’s] “Oh, Lady Be Good!” to [Monk’s] “‘Round Midnight” to [Dizzy Gillespie’s] “A Night in Tunisia,” “Body and Soul,” just a combination of that period, the older tunes and the newer tunes, written by the younger composers.

Q: Did you ever get to perform with Jackie McLean?

A: Ironically, I don’t think we ever played together. But I knew Jackie. He and Sonny Rollins, those were the guys who were really advanced with the music. I was still in the restaurant business with my dad. … Being in New York, we would just catch music wherever it was. We’d go to Harlem, we’d go to 52nd Street. We’d go hear Jackie or Sonny Rollins or Dizzy or Louis Armstrong. There was so much great music, and Jackie was one of those giants.

Q: Your “African Nubian Suite” is a grand statement, a double-CD that suggests African people separated throughout the world should come together. Is that fair to say?

A: It’s a combination of things. The image of Africa has always been so negative, from the time I was a little boy. We have very little education about the great African empires that preceded Western Civilization. That’s why we started with Nubia, but we went back even further. They found the skeleton of a woman that’s four-and-a-half million years old. It took 20 years to put her together. They found out she walked upright at that time. That part of Africa was all forests, you see. The whole idea is that she’s our first mother, of everyone on Planet Earth. Civilization began with the great African empires, the Nile River civilization. From there, African people spread throughout the planet, and they changed according to climate. The whole concept of music began in Africa. When you go down the Nile Valley, which I did with my wife, you see these incredible monuments with instruments, guitars, trumpets, drums, strings. All of these ancient empires that existed before Western Civilization even began. So it’s a combination music, culture, history and to give the proper recognizition that Mother Africa has never received. Music, jazz, blues in America: without Africa, they wouldn’t exist.

Q: Your father taught you that you’re from Africa, but born in America. He also started you on the piano at age 6. Are those two things — your African lineage and the piano as a means of expression — forever linked in your mind?

A: Yes, absolutely. My dad said, “When you go outside the house, you’re going to hear a lot of lies about yourself. You’re going to hear that you’re inferior. You’re going to hear that you have no history, that you have no language. … You’re going to learn the truth at home.” He made sure I read books by African historians and European historians who told the truth about Africa. It was always instilled in me to have that kind of pride in who I am. At that time, it was Tarzan in the movies. Every time you saw Africans in a movie, there were people who were servants in America.

With the piano, Pop and Mom would bring Duke Ellington’s music into the house, and Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, they would bring spirituals. That was true of the whole neighborhood. We were exposed to all kinds of music. My dad loved piano, and I guess he wanted me to play it. He had no idea I was going to become a professional. I didn’t think that myself, for many reasons. Number one, we had our royalty of piano in the ’30s and ’40s and ’50s, from Willie the Lion to Hubie Blake to Basie and Earl Hines, Art Tatum, on and on. It was an incredible period of great pianists, you see.

Q: Your “African Nubian Suite,” like so many works of art, was made possible through a grant. That situation more and more precarious these days. What are your thoughts on that?

A: The media has not been kind to this music. This is America’s classical music, what we call jazz. I call it African-American classical music. This is the only original music of the 20th century. All the artists it has produced: it’s mind-blowing.

I once made a list of all the trumpet players, trombonists, pianists, all African-American. I said, “Wow, how did they create this music, coming here in slavery? How did they get away from the chains and pick up trumpets and trombones and guitars and create this beautiful music?” Unfortunately today, you see nothing about our music. Everyone should know Louis Armstrong. Everybody should know Dizzy. Everybody should know about the genius of Duke Ellington, 45 years with an orchestra, America’s greatest composer. For me, we become culturally undeveloped if we do not pass down this heritage to young people. They don’t know. That’s the big problem.

RANDY WESTON performs at the 10th annual Jackie McLean Memorial Celebration at the Artists Collective in Hartford on May 20 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 to $25. artistscollective.org, 860-527-3205.