African Rhythms Ensemble with special guest Billy Hart

This evening, the Vermont Jazz Center is honored to present the African Rhythms Ensemble as part of the centennial celebration of pianist and composer Randy Weston’s music and legacy. An NEA Jazz Master, Weston devoted his seven-decade career to exploring the profound connections between African music and North American jazz. Tonight’s ensemble features longtime members of Weston’s African Rhythms ensemble, joined by legendary drummer and NEA Jazz Master Billy Hart: T.K. Blue (saxophones and flute), Frank Lacy (trombone), Sharp Radway (piano), Alex Blake (bass), Billy Hart (drums), and Baba Neil Clarke (African percussion).

Weston’s importance to jazz lies in his extraordinary ability to connect the music of Africa with the American jazz tradition. Jazz historian Robin D. G. Kelley wrote that Weston was “more than any other musician, composer, or bandleader of his generation” responsible for fusing modern jazz and African music. This connection was deeply personal. Raised in Brooklyn, Weston grew up surrounded by books, artwork, portraits of African kings and maps of Africa. His father instilled in him the belief that he was “an African born in America,” a consciousness that became central to his music.

Weston’s musical development was also shaped by Thelonious Monk, whom he sought out in 1944 after hearing him perform on 52nd Street. Their three-year association became an important mentorship. Weston later recalled that Monk showed him how to maintain African musical traditions while creating from them rather than moving away from them.

In 1951, Weston moved to the Berkshires and became a fixture at the legendary Music Inn in Lenox, where he encountered artists and intellectuals including Langston Hughes, Mariam Makeba and Babatunde Olatunji. His African-centered musical vision continued to develop, culminating in landmark recordings such as Uhuru Africa (1960), which brought together African and North American musicians and incorporated the Swahili language.

Weston eventually traveled throughout Africa and the Middle East, settling in Tangier, Morocco for five years. There he established the African Rhythms Club, studied regional music and developed relationships with Gnawa musicians. His experiences abroad profoundly influenced his compositions and deepened his lifelong exploration of African musical traditions.

The musicians performing tonight have an unusually direct connection to Weston’s legacy.

T.K. Blue, the ensemble’s music director, has been a member of African Rhythms for 40 years and served as Weston’s musical director for 29 years. Blue began playing trumpet at eight, switched to drums at ten, and discovered the flute in high school. He studied through New York’s Jazzmobile program with Jimmy Heath, Chris Woods, Ernie Wilkins, Frank Foster and Jimmy Owens. Blue later toured extensively with South African pianist and NEA Jazz Master Abdullah Ibrahim and performed with artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Bobby McFerrin and Dee Dee Bridgewater. While performing with Ibrahim, Blue first met Weston, beginning a relationship that led to decades of touring, recording, and performing together. His 2017 album Amor received four stars from DownBeat, and he has been repeatedly recognized in the magazine’s critics’ and readers’ polls.

Pianist Sharp Radway, a protégé of Weston, has worked with Yusef Lateef, Benny Golson, Slide Hampton, Curtis Fuller, Louis Hayes, Candido Camero, Frank Lacy, and many others. Alex Blake, born in Panama and raised in Brooklyn, began his career as a teenager and went on to perform with Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, and Weston. Baba Neil Clarke has spent more than half a century studying traditional African drumming and has maintained a long musical relationship with Weston while also working with artists including Harry Belafonte, Dianne Reeves, and Miriam Makeba.

Frank Lacy has enjoyed a nearly five-decade career that includes work with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, McCoy Tyner, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Hargrove, the Mingus Big Band and artists ranging from Elvis Costello to Erykah Badu. Billy Hart, one of jazz’s most respected drummers, has performed and recorded with McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Stan Getz, Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis, among countless others.

Randy Weston once said, “I come to be a storyteller; I’m not a jazz musician; I tell stories in music.” Tonight, these remarkable musicians continue those stories, carrying forward Weston’s vision of Africa, rhythm and jazz as interconnected expressions of a shared musical heritage.

By Eugene Uman and Sarah Ozga