Arts
Drummer, producer, educator and 2021 NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington is not only a virtuoso musician, she’s also a strong advocate for social justice and gender equity. She has spent her life in jazz. Coming from a musical family, she had her first professional gig at the age of ten (with Clark Terry, no less!). By the time she 11, she was a part-time student of the Berklee College of Music. And her career took off from there. In the 1980s, she worked with jazz luminaries like Pharaoh Saunders and Frank West; in the 1990s, she toured with jazz greats like Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. She went on the lead her own groups, and in 2014, she became the first woman to win a Grammy Award as a leader for Best Jazz Instrumental Album with Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue. She brought together women instrumentalists and vocalists for The Mosaic Project tours and recordings. Her recent album Waiting Game with her group Social Science is the definition of artistic intersectionality in terms of race, gender, age, and style. And Carrington is deeply committed to empowering the next generation of musicians--founding and serving as the artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. In this podcast, we talk about her early mentors, her development as a drummer and as a bandleader, some of the great musicians she’s played with, and her advocacy for gender equity in jazz and society.