On November 18-20, 2010, The Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies brought together scholars and activists, writers and artists, youth and elders, to mark our 40th year on the UMass Amherst campus, as well as to support the exchange of knowledge about the dynamic Black Power Movement period in which academic Black Studies units like ours were established. The conference, Art & Power in Movement 2010 Conference, drew over 400 participants. One of those who participated was Randy Weston. He did not demand payment commensurate of someone of his stature, he did not require VIP treatment (although we extended to him our best hospitality), and throughout, he was most generous with his time, talent, and brilliance.
Photo of participants in the Plenary Session: Forty Years of Black Music in the Pioneer Valley
with John Bracey (Chair), Glen Siegel, Randy Weston, Terry Jenoure, Frederick Tillis, and Tom Reney.

Dr. Randy Weston, Musician also appeared in concert at Bowker Auditorium, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, November 18, 2010, at 8:00 PM.  After seven decades as a professional musician Weston remains one of the world’s foremost pianists and composers, a true innovator and visionary. “Weston has the biggest sound of any jazz pianist since Ellington and Monk,” writes Stanley Crouch. In a career that began in the late 1940s, Weston has criss-crossed the globe connecting the African diaspora through sound. “Mr. Weston is a truth seeker who sees a power in music much greater than all of us,” writes The New York Times.

We send our condolences to the Weston family. Brooklyn born on 4/6/1926, to Garveyites, Frank, a barber and restaurateur from Panama, and Vivian, a domestic worker who grew up in Virginia, he lived a long and accomplished life. When he keynoted our conference in 2010, his book, African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston had just been published. We will miss this jazz master, Africana Studies pioneer, and black power activist. Let us never fail to remember him in word and deed. —Amilcar Shabazz

Important links:

2010 Conference proceedings https://scholarworks.umass.edu/blackartspower/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2018/09/02/randy-weston-pianist-whose-jazz-compositions-explored-music-african-beginnings/N6mkmz28m0FTev4BKYPd1J/story.html

2001 NEA Jazz Master https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/randy-weston 

“Randy Weston, Pianist Who Traced Roots of Jazz to Africa, Dies at 92,” NYT, Giovanni Russonello
Sept. 1, 2018.–click photo above to go to the article–Randy Weston performing in 1963. His playing and composing emphasized the African roots of jazz. Credit: Chuck Stewart

AFROAM 170–The Grassroots Experience in American Life and Culture I
A civic engagement/community-based service learning class you co-create
(#42677) / Meeting Dates: Wedn 2:30 – 5PM, New Africa House room 302
Prof. Demetria Shabazz

For details on the class go to
http://websites.umass.edu/dshabazz/register-fall-2017-170-seminar/

AFROAM 591C
Digital Video Production and Research in the Black Community
(#42695) Meeting Dates: Tues 2:30 – 5PM, New Africa House room TBA
Prof. Demetria Shabazz

This course aims to increase the utility and impact of research produced at UMass by creating, adapting, implementing, supporting, and sustaining innovative digital tools and publishing platforms for content delivery, discovery, analysis, data curation, and preservation. It will also engage students in extensive outreach, education, and advocacy to ensure that scholarly work in the Du Bois Department has a global reach and accelerates the pace of research across disciplines.

The course will teach visual methodological research methods and digital camera usage to explore social networks, the inclusion of community partners in research, and black neighborhood and community spaces. We draw on the substantive and methodological experiences of visual researchers using photography, film, and video and the evident challenges of representing such a diversely situated experience as that of African Americans. We will discuss and learn camera use and operation, data collection and analysis, ethical concerns, community partnerships, refinement of research questions, and theoretical use and development of imagery in research regarding the African American community.

I welcome working with graduate students, and undergraduates, Emerging Scholars, and Commonwealth Honors College students. The course can focus on your own research project and/or connect with a new video production of the Du Bois Department we will begin that will air on Amherst Media. Contact Prof. Dee Shabazz at dshabazz@umass.edu for more details on the course.