His death was confirmed by his lawyer, Gail Boyd, who said the exact cause was still being determined.

On his earliest recordings in the mid-1950s, Mr. Weston almost fit the profile of a standard bebop musician: He recorded  http://www.randyweston.info/randy-weston-discography-pages/1954coleporter.html" rel="nofollow - jazz standards  and galloping original tunes in a  http://www.randyweston.info/randy-weston-discography-pages/1955trio-artblakey.html" rel="nofollow - typical, small-group format . But his sharply cut harmonies and intense, gnarled rhythms conveyed a manifestly Afrocentric sensibility, one that was slightly more barbed and rugged than the popular hard-bop sound of the day.

Early on, he exhibited a distinctive voice as a composer. “Hi-Fly,” which he first released in 1958 on the LP “New Faces at Newport,” became a standard. And he eventually distinguished himself as a solo pianist, reflecting the influence of his main idol, Thelonious Monk. But more than Monk, Mr. Weston liked to constantly reshape his cadences, rarely lingering on a steady pulse.

from www.nytimes.com