Formally and informally, through praise and awards, Randy Weston has been crowned a king of American jazz piano repeatedly since he emerged in the 1950s.

But it’s not just jazz piano, and it is certainly not just an American sound. If it was, Langston Hughes probably wouldn’t have called his music “an ebb and flow of sound seemingly as natural as the waves of the sea.”

No, as much as Randy Weston learned from folks like Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington, his musical style owes as much to the decade he spent in Nigeria and Morocco. It’s a sound like no other, blended by a master.

Tonight in New York at the Paris Bar, catch Randy West playing with Alex Blake on upright bass and George Clarke on drums.

More on this special event, for which TRACE is the media partner, here.