Portrait of Randy Weston

Birthday profile

Randy Weston

Randy Weston, American jazz pianist and composer (died 2018)

Born
April 6, 1926
Died
September 1, 2018
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1926

About Randy Weston

Randolph Edward "Randy" Weston was an American jazz pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection. There at the Music Inn, a venue where jazz historian Marshall Stearns taught, Weston first learned about the African roots of jazz. The whole idea was to trace African people wherever we are and what we do with music." In 1972, he produced Blue Moses for CTI Records, a best-selling record on which he plays electric keyboard. Melba Liston, as well as playing trombone on the record, provided excellent arrangements for a sextet playing several of Weston's best compositions: the title track, "Earth Birth", "Babe's Blues", "Pam's Waltz", and others. Weston covered the Nigerian Bobby Benson's piece "Niger Mambo", which included Caribbean and jazz elements within a Highlife style, and has recorded this number many times throughout his career.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Randy Weston was born

Randy Weston was born in 1926. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1926

  • #1 song"Bye Bye Blackbird"
  • Top movieThe General (Buster Keaton)
  • Best-selling bookThe Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentGertrude Ederle swims the English Channel
  • Top headlineA.A. Milne publishes Winnie-the-Pooh
  • Technology milestoneFirst demonstration of television
  • Defining fadFlagpole sitting
  • Notable inventionPop-up toaster
  • World population2.01 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderCalvin Coolidge
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population117.4M

1926 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Randy Weston's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19262026
Gas$0.23$3.45/gal
Average home$6,000$435,000
Average income$3,620$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population117.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.