Black Music Sunday: A salute to Terri Lyne Carrington and women in jazz

[Brexiter]

When people hear the word “jazz” or think of famed jazz musicians women are rarely included in that category—the exceptions are famed “jazz vocalists.” Some of those vocalists were also instrumentalists, like Nina Simone, who was pressured by the constraints of the industry to sing and not focus on her pianistic skills.

When we now take a deeper look at issues of “jazz and gender” or “jazz and patriarchy” we can be thankful for much of the critical work, discussion, and practice of percussionist and educator Terri Lyne Carrington. Her birthday is today.

”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 220 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.

Encyclopedia.com covers Carrington’s early years:

Carrington was born into a musical family in Medford, Massachusetts, on August 4, 1965. Her mother played piano as a hobby and her father, Sonny Carrington, was a tenor saxophone player and president of the Boston Jazz Society. Her grandfather, Matt Carrington, played drums with Fats Waller and Chu Berry. Carrington began her musical studies on the alto saxophone, but gave it up when she lost her baby teeth and then found it hard to manipulate the instrument. Discovering her grandfather's old drum kit underneath a stairwell in her family's home, she pestered her father to assemble it for her. He did, and Carrington proved a natural.

Carrington began to take drum lessons from Keith Copeland and sit in with jazz veterans such as trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, pianist Oscar Peterson, and vocalist Joe Williams. When she was ten, trumpeter Clark Terry brought her to the Wichita Jazz Festival to perform with his ensemble. There she met drummer Buddy Rich, who secured Carrington a spot on a television show called To Tell the Truth.

A year later when Carrington was eleven, she received a special scholarship to attend the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston, where she remained for three semesters. While at Berklee she performed with such up-and-coming musicians as guitarist Kevin Eubanks and saxophonists Branford Marsalis and Greg Osby. In 1981 she recorded a privately issued album, TLC and Friends, with her father and with pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Buster Williams, and saxophonist George Coleman.

Here’s that 1981 album:

YouTube Video

It’s an astonishing debut from then-16-year-old Carrington with George Coleman on sax, Kenny Barron on piano, and Buster Williams on bass.

Her website continues her story:

Celebrating 40 years in music, NEA Jazz Master and four-time GRAMMY® award-winning drummer, producer and educator, Terri Lyne Carrington started her professional career in Massachusetts at 10 years old when she became the youngest person to receive a union card in Boston. … Carrington worked as an in-demand musician in New York City, and later moved to Los Angeles, where she gained recognition on late night TV as the house drummer for both the Arsenio Hall Show and Quincy Jones’ VIBE TV show, hosted by Sinbad.

While still in her 20’s, Ms. Carrington toured extensively with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, among others. In 2011 she released the GRAMMY® award-winning album, The Mosaic Project, featuring a cast of all-star women instrumentalists and vocalists, and in 2013 she released, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue, which also earned a GRAMMY® Award, establishing her as the first woman ever to win in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category.

To date Ms. Carrington has performed on over 100 recordings and has been a role model and advocate for young women and men internationally through her teaching and touring careers. She has toured or recorded with luminary artists such as Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, Woody Shaw, Clark Terry, Diana Krall, Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves, James Moody, Yellowjackets, Esperanza Spalding, Kris Davis, Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, and Nancy Wilson.

Here she is in 1988, playing with Wayne Shorter:

YouTube Video

In 2018, Carrington founded the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, which is the first institute of its kind.

The jazz industry remains predominantly male due to a biased system, imposing a significant toll on those who aspire to work in it. In understanding the importance of balance and equity, the goal of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice is to do corrective work and modify the way jazz is perceived and presented, so the future of jazz looks different than its past without rendering invisible many of the art form's creative contributors. [...]

The institute will celebrate the contributions women have made in the development of the art form as well as frame more equitable conditions for all pursuing careers in jazz in an effort to work toward a necessary and lasting cultural shift in the field.

RELATED STORY: Black Music Sunday: The future of jazz looks bright, thanks to Black women around the world

In 2002 Carrington recorded her album “Jazz Is A Spirit,” featuring Wallace Roney. From Jim Santella’s review at AllAboutJazz:

Her album expresses the spirit of jazz. A Wayne Shorter composition, a Lars Danielson piece, and ten originals provide the framework. There are also two superb unaccompanied drum tracks: one including the voice of "Papa" Jo Jones, not too long before he passed on. She and the band members interpret each mainstream selection with personality. Carrington's position isn't flashy or loud, routine or overbearing. Call her Ms. Taste. She colors each mood and shades every melody with textures that capture her intent. Brushes, shimmering cymbals, light sticks and thundering mallets cover the bases.

YouTube Video

In 2010/2011, she kicked off a major endeavor that included an impressive all-female cast of Esperanza Spalding, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Nona Hendryx, and many others, called The Mosaic Project. According to Concord Jazz, Carrington has “has established a reputation for assembling artists of varying styles and perspectives to create music that adheres to the traditions of jazz yet speaks to a much broader and more diverse audience.” This project “gathers a myriad of voices and crystallizes them into a multi-faceted whole that far outweighs the sum of its parts.”

YouTube Video

RELATED STORY: At the age of 15, Esperanza Spalding picked up a bass. She's never put it down

Carrington immersed herself in Duke Ellington’s history to record this epic tribute of “Money Jungle,” which marked the 50th anniversary of the release of the historic Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach recording:

YouTube Video

Concord Records explains:

In 1962, Duke Ellington recorded a trio date with bassist Charlie Mingus and drummer Max Roach that is today considered one of the pivotal jazz recordings of the 1960s. Money Jungle, the 1963 album that emerged from the session, was -- among other things -- a commentary on the perennial tug-of-war between art and commerce. In some ways, the album's 11 tracks were intended as a sort of counterbalance to the capitalist bent of the Mad Men generation.

Fifty years later, this precarious balance in the world of jazz -- or in any art form, for that matter -- hasn't changed much. Enter GRAMMY® Award-winning drummer, composer and bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington, who enlists the aid of two high-profile collaborators -- keyboardist Gerald Clayton and bassist Christian McBride -- to pay tribute to Duke, his trio and his creative vision with a cover of this historic recording.

You are in for a treat when you listen to this 2020 NPR Music Tiny Desk concert:

YouTube Video

As noted by NPR, Carrington’s latest group, Social Science, is another serious collaboration:

"I hope that you can enjoy this music because it can be heavy," drummer and bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington told the NPR crowd gathered for this Tiny Desk. "We've tried to figure out a way to make it feel good and still give these messages.

[...]

Carrington visited the Desk with her current band, Social Science, a collaboration with pianist Aaron Parks and guitarist Matthew Stevens (both performing here). In the works for some time, their project culminated in 2016 when the cultural divisiveness brought on by the presidential election inspired the trio to take action. "I think there's an awakening happening in society in general," Carrington writes on her website, "I feel a calling in my life to merge my artistry with any form of activism that I'm able to engage in.

"This performance features music from the band's new album, Waiting Game. It's story-filled, groove-music performed by a group of accomplished musicians who improvise, rap and sing over complex but highly crafted and accessible instrumental motifs. A perfect synthesis of jazz, indie rock and hip-hop influences, the four songs they played address important, culturally relevant protest narratives: mass incarceration, collective liberation, police brutality and Native American genocide.

[...]

"There is so much we can be angry about but you can't really stay there," Carrington told NPR. "Instead, you can reach somebody on a human level."

In 2021 Carrington was honored as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master:

YouTube Video

In this 2022 video, Carrington and other guests introduce the concepts of “Jazz Without Patriarchy.”

YouTube Video

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem sponsored the program “Jazz and Social Justice, which was streamed live on Nov. 10, 2022, with Carrington:

YouTube Video

In 2022, Carrington released yet another ambitious project, “New Standards: Volume 1,” which included a collaborative album, a book, and an exhibit:

YouTube Video


The National Jazz Museum in Harlem site explains:

On her album new STANDARDS, vol. 1, a star-studded band plays new arrangements of 11 compositions written by women. Those songs, and 90 more, appear in her new book, New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers—a revisionist “Real Book” that presents an untold history of women composers, along with new “standards” for jazz musicians to play. She also curated a related multi-media installation for The Carr Center in Detroit, where she is artistic director, (October 14 through November 27), “Shifting the Narrative: Jazz and Gender Justice”—about which, Carrington says, “When you leave, you won’t be able to think about gender and jazz and be indifferent.”

The album won a GRAMMY in 2023 for Best Instrumental Jazz Album. And as the GRAMMY website explains about the multimedia project:

A rainshower of recent press coverage has positioned Terri Lyne Carrington as a conservator, a custodian, a caretaker of the canon — and that's deservedly so.


In Sept. 2022, the three-time GRAMMY-winning drummer released New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers. This sheet music collection rebalances the gender scales and shines a light on women who have been blatantly underrepresented in male-dominated "fake books" — figures like Toshiko Akiyoshi, Geri Allen, Joanne Brackeen, Carla Bley, and Mary Lou Williams.

Accompanying this was new STANDARDS vol. 1 — the first in a series of albums aiming to cover all 101 compositions. Therein, Carrington, pianist Kris Davis, bassist Linda May Han Oh, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, and guitarist Matthew Stevens interpreted compositions by women composers represented in the book — like Brandee Younger's "Respected Destroyer," clarinetist Anet Cohen's "Ima," and Bley's "Two Hearts (Lawns)."

Musicians and music historians should definitely lay your hands on Carrington’s book, “We Can Transform a Culture.”

The songbook is the latest for Carrington’s Jazz Without Patriarchy Project, and the first initiative from Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, which she formed in 2018 with the Berklee College of Music and serves as its artistic director. Having spent the last decade advocating for more inclusivity in jazz and raising the voices of women and trans- and non-binary people, Carrington hopes New Standards furthers the conversation about who decides who shapes the genre.

[...]

“Our motto is ‘jazz without patriarchy,’ and that is something we’re trying to envision,” Carrington says about the Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. “We don’t have it yet, but it’s definitely moving in the right direction. We’re trying to shift the narratives and set new standards so that we can transform a culture. It’s collective work [on] so many fronts with so many people that understand the biggest point — which is the music has not and will not reach its fullest potential until there’s equity within the people that create it.”

Before closing, here’s a taste of “New Standards” live, performed at the Berklee College of Music:

YouTube Video


Join me for more of Carrington and her friends in the comments section below, and if you follow her on social media, wish her a happy birthday!