Willard Jenkins, left, and Randy Weston – shown here in a separate appearance – discussed their book at Sankofa Café last week. Courtesy Willard Jenkins

by Luke Stewart

Duke Ellington once remarked that his artistic goal was to convey the Black experience in America. Many jazz musicians have been inspired by this idea, but few have achieved success like Randy Weston.

On Apr. 9 at the popular Sankofa Café and Bookstore, Weston discussed “African Rhythms,” a term that encompasses his musical approach, his life philosophy and now his acclaimed autobiography. The book, released last year, is “composed by Randy Weston and arranged by Williard Jenkins” – meaning that, in effect, Weston told his story to Jenkins, who then committed it to the written word. (Full disclosure: I am the production manager and a DJ at WPFW, where Jenkins hosts a weekly show.)

At Sankofa, Weston and Jenkins led a discussion of the book and signed copies. As the talk moved through Weston’s music career, which spans the better part of 60 years, he made it clear that his aim has always been to “bring Africans together through music.”

Jenkins, a jazz journalist and historian, worked with Weston on this project for over nine years, beginning in 2001. Their relationship had begun in the early 1990s, when they met at the Montreal Jazz Festival. In his work with the National Endowment for the Arts, Jenkins noticed how many great jazz musicians lacked proper biographies telling the important stories of their lives. Jenkins and Weston’s musical director at the time, saxophonist T.K. Blue, discussed the possibilities of instigating a book project.

“[The book] was written in a series of extended interviews,” Jenkins said. In 2001, Jenkins traveled to Morocco with Weston, where the pianist had spent almost 7 years in the late ’60s and early ’70s, after a tour with the State Department. His experience there was highly influential on the rest of his life. Living in Tangier, Weston was able to cultivate many relationships, and contributed to the cultural community.

Weston opened a music venue in Tangier called African Rhythm. It was “not a jazz club; it [was] an African club,” Weston said during his talk at Sankofa. The venue featured a variety of music from Africa and the African Diaspora – from American blues to Ghanaian highlife to the music of the Gnawa in Morocco. Weston was also deeply engaged in the rich cultural tradition of Africa, seeking out the elders of each unique tradition he encountered. The club ended in financial disaster, but Weston received a wealth of cultural awareness and also contributed to raising the profile of the Gnawa people in Morocco.

The time Weston and Jenkins spent in Morocco was an extremely important aspect of writing process, because the two were able to come together on common ground, without much technological or sociological interruption. There, Jenkins absorbed a lot of information about Weston – not only the musician but the cultural icon. His importance in African culture was paramount, as Jenkins would discover when he interviewed different Gnawa figures.

“The Gnawa musicians were viewed as street musicians,” Jenkins recalled. “I interviewed a friend of his from Brooklyn, and she talked about the fact that her mother was afraid of the Gnawa … In the course of his relationship with the Gnawa, he began to incorporate them in his music. He did a couple of recordings with Gnawa in Morocco. He took some Gnawa from Tangier and Marrakesh on the road with him. And as a result, now, there’s a gigantic Gnawa festival in June. Not only that, but now the Gnawa have become an integral part of Moroccan culture. And that’s part of the result of his work.”

Weston has forged a legacy as a jazz musician who achieved the ultimate artistic goal: to make one’s art mean more than the art itself. A complete musician, as he said he discovered in Africa, “is a historian, a teacher, and is respected in the community.” Weston has successfully immersed himself in the culture of his ancestors, astutely engaging rather than exploiting. Instead of searching for ideas to appropriate, he delved into the culture and contributed to the advancement of an entire community. Now he has taken his place as a cultural icon throughout the African Diaspora, spreading his wisdom in America and all over the world.

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