Terri Lyne Carrington is a Grammy-winning drummer, percussionist, composer, bandleader, and producer. Her signature, and often-emulated funky drumming style has been applied to many different settings, from jazz and soul to rock, blues, and crossover classical music. She is among the first significant female drummers in jazz and has worked extensively with
Clark Terry,
Cassandra Wilson,
Dianne Reeves,
Wayne Shorter,
Herbie Hancock, and many others. After beginning her recording career with bassist
Rufus Reid's trio, she released
Real Life Story, her Grammy-nominated leader debut in 1989. She spent the next 12 years as one of jazz's most in-demand drummers. After assuming the leader mantle again for 2002's acclaimed
Jazz Is a Spirit, she began working in that capacity regularly, while continuing her work as a session and touring musician. In 2007,
Carrington was appointed professor at her alma mater, Berklee College of Music. In 2011, she issued the Grammy-winning
The Mosaic Project that straddled jazz and R&B with an all-star band of female players and singers who included
Wilson,
Reeves,
Dee Dee Bridgewater, and
Gretchen Parlato. The following year she won a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for
Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue, on which she led an eight-piece ensemble. In 2015, she issued
Mosiac Project: Love and Soul, and four years later led a new band called Social Science, along with a dozen guests, on the politically themed The Waiting Game.
Carrington was regarded as a prodigy in her hometown of Medford, Massachusetts. While in high school and college, she impressed many veteran jazz players. Moving to New York City in the early '80s, she began to get gigs with local musicians before gaining enough attention to warrant another move, this time to California, where she was seen by millions on a nightly basis as a member of the band on The Arsenio Hall Show and worked with
Wayne Shorter's late-'80s band. She released her debut recording as a leader on Verve Forecast in 1989. Into the late '90s,
Carrington continued working steadily and was heard best in funk settings, as exemplified by her work with
Herbie Hancock.
At the turn of the century, her second solo album began to take shape and was eventually released in 2002 as
Jazz Is a Spirit. Two years later, she delivered
Structure, featuring the similarly funk- and post-bop-inclined saxophonist
Greg Osby.
Carrington returned in 2009 with
More to Say...Real Life Story; it featured an all-star lineup of guests including
George Duke,
Everette Harp,
Kirk Whalum, and
Walter Beasley, and then up-and-coming trumpeter
Ambrose Akinmusire. In 2011, she released
The Mosaic Project, which spotlighted several vocalists -- including
Cassandra Wilson,
Dianne Reeves, and
Dee Dee Bridgewater, among others -- and was played by an all-female band. She won a Grammy for the set in 2012 for Best Jazz Vocal album.
After years of being haunted by the 1963 album
Money Jungle, from the trio of
Duke Ellington,
Charles Mingus, and
Max Roach,
Carrington decided to record her own radically reworked version with bassist
Christian McBride and pianist
Gerald Clayton. Her album also featured guest performances from trumpeter
Clark Terry, trombonist
Robin Eubanks, saxophonists
Tia Fuller and
Antonio Hart, and vocalist
Lizz Wright. In addition to the original set's tracks,
Carrington added some of her own tunes to the mix.
Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue was released by Concord in February 2013.
She circled back to her ever-evolving Mosaic Project for 2015's
Love & Soul. The 12-song set showcased an entirely new female band, as well as a large host of vocalists who included
Ledisi,
Wright,
Chaka Khan,
Chante Moore, and
Valerie Simpson.
Carrington spent three years working with a new band to realize her next project for Motema Music. Calling her group Terri Lyne Carrington & Social Science, it was comprised of pianist/keyboardist
Aaron Parks, guitarist
Matthew Stevens, multi-instrumentalist
Morgan Guerin, vocalist
Debo Ray, and MC/DJ
Kassa Overall. In addition, she recruited a guest list that included rappers Rapsody,
Kokayi,
Raydar Ellis, and
Maimouna Youssef (aka Mumu Fresh), along with trumpeter
Nicholas Payton, bassists
Derrick Hodge and
Esperanza Spalding, vocalist
Mark Kibble (of
Take 6) and spoken word from
Meshell Ndegeocello and
Malcolm-Jamal Warner. The double-set entitled The Waiting Game was issued in early November and confronted a wide spectrum of social justice issues. ~ Scott Yanow