from the atmosphere of drug use common on the New York jazz scene, Weston moved to Lenox, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. There at the Music Inn, a venue where jazz historian Marshall Stearns taught, Weston first learned about the African roots of jazz. He would return in subsequent summers to perform at the Music Inn, where he wrote his composition "Berkshire Blues", interacting with artists and intellectuals such as Geoffrey Holder, Babatunde Olatunji, Langston Hughes and Willis James, about which experience Weston said: "I got a lot of my inspiration for African music by being at Music Inn.... They were all explaining the African-American experience in a global perspective, which was unusual at the time." Weston worked with Kenny Dorham in 1953, and in 1954 with Cecil Payne, before forming his own trio and quartet and releasing his debut recording as a leader in 1954, Cole Porter in a Modern Mood. He was voted New Star Pianist in DownBeat magazine's International Critics' Poll of 1955. Several fine albums followed, with the best being Little Niles near the end of that decade, dedicated to his children Niles and Pamela, with all the tunes being written in 3/4 time. 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. 1960s–70s In the 1960s, Weston's music prominently incorporated African elements, as shown on the large-scale suite Uhuru Afrika (1960, with the participation of poet Langston Hughes) and Highlife (full title: Music from the New African Nations featuring the Highlife), the latter recorded in 1963, two years after Weston traveled for the first time to Africa, as part of a U.S. cultural exchange programme to Lagos, Nigeria (the contingent also including Langston Hughes, musicians Lionel Hampton and Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and singers Nina Simone and Brock Peters). On both these albums he teamed up with the arranger Melba Liston. Uhuru Afrika, or Freedom Africa, is considered a historic landmark album that celebrates several new African countries obtaining their Independence. In addition, during these years his band often featured the tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin. 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. In 1967, Weston traveled throughout Africa with a U.S. cultural