Clinton Hill Block Will Be Named For Late Local Jazz Legend

CLINTON HILL, BROOKLYN — A neighborhood block will soon be named for a well-known jazz musician who grew up on the street, City Council Member Laurie Cumbo announced.

Cumbo and a group of other elected officials will gather at the corner of Lafayette and Grand avenues on Sunday, Sep. 29 to officially co-name the block "Randy Weston Way" after the famed pianist.

Weston, named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, lived on Lafayette Avenue when he was growing up in Bed-Stuy, according to an obituary for the musician, who died in September.

The ceremony will include performances by Weston's own Randy Weston African Rhythms Band and a host of other musicians like Billy Harper, Eric Frazier, and T.K. Blue.

Weston was born in Brooklyn in 1926 and lived in Brooklyn until his death, according to the obituary. He worked as a pianist, composer and bandleader and was known for "exposing jazz music’s extensions of African lineage and tradition."

The musician, who also was a U.S. Army veteran, lived in Tangier, Africa with his children for five years operating a jazz club. He studied music there until he returned to the U.S. in 1973, where he continued to play music with a variety of bands.

Sunday's ceremony is the second time Fort Greene and Clinton Hill will honor a jazz musician in recent weeks.

Cumbo and other elected officials also came together last week to officially open Betty Carter Park, a small green space that used to be known as BAM Park near the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Carter, once a Fort Greene resident, was a Grammy-winning jazz vocalist.

"This is a great month for the Brooklyn jazz community!" Cumbo said in a Tweet about the Weston co-naming.

The ceremony on Sunday will start at 3 p.m.