Randy Weston

Randy Weston (born April 6, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York), is an American jazz pianist and composer, of Jamaican parentage.Weston studied classical piano as a child but did not have to travel far to hear the jazz giants who were to influence him. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he ran a restaurant that was frequented by many of the leading bebop musicians. Among his piano heroes are numbered Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington (and Wynton Kelly was a cousin), but it was Thelonious Monk who had the greatest impact.