Terri Lyne Carrington | More To Say… (Real Life Story: NextGen) | TheUrbanMusicScene.com

Terri Lyne Carrington – More To Say…(Real Life Story: NextGen)

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Imagine playing and studying the alto saxophone as a child and then an unusual circumstance changes those plans. For Terri Lyne Carrington, the loss of her baby teeth turned out to be an obstacle in learning the instrument. However,the musical genes inherited from her father, Sonny Carrington, and her ingrained perseverance impressed upon her to follow her dream, even if it means changing musical instruments. Thanks to a discovery in her family house basement – an old set of drums once owned by her musician grandfather, Matt Carrington, the then-seven year old was on her way to a well-decorated career in jazz. Carrington’s discipline on mastering her new found instrument that by age ten, brought her to stages small and big. Three years after discovering the drum kit, she was featured with be-bop trumpeter and music educator Clark Terry at The Wichita Jazz Festival. By the way, before experiencing her first major jazz festival, she had already cut her teeth with the likes of pianist Oscar Peterson and blues vocalist Joe Williams. Her dream continued to proceed in fast and furious manner she earned a scholarship into her early teen years at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Her future class of influential musicians included Branford Marsalis & Greg Osby. By age sixteen, Carrington’s plate was always full; whether playing in aband, in the studio with her father on a custom record called TLC & Friends, touring with The New York Jazz Quartet or Clark Terry. With her full plate, this portion of her career was just a sliver of the pie.

If there was the definitive big break, it started with Carrington beating out over a dozen musicians in 1987 in having the honor to join jazz fusion master Wayne Shorter and his group, Weather Report. The same year, she also made the coast-to-coast move from New York City to Los Angeles, the gigs kept on coming, and her recording solo debut was birthed.

The Verve Forecast release – Real Life Story – brought a hodgepodge of R&B, fusion, world music, modern jazz, bop,and pop (the Beatles classic “Blackbird”); all styles that Terri feels extremely at home with. In response to some jazz purists who were dumbfounded that her debut did not reflect her early traditional and modern jazz training, Carrington told Down Beat Magazine: “Well, all I got to say is, pigeonholes are pigeons.” Humor aside, Real Life Story garnered a Grammy nomination and was graced with cream of the crop musicians like Carlos Santana, Grover Washington Jr., Patrice Rushen, and Dianne Reeves. The follow-ups to Real Life Story included two projects for Act Music that stretched the jazz spectrum. Carrington lead a primarily acoustic accented small group with spoken word and world music rhythms called Jazz Is A Spirit,featuring Herbie Hancock & Wallace Roney, plus spoken word contributions by actor Malcolm Jamal Warner, and a musical dedication to Shorter entitled Samsara. Stucture, a quartet featuring Carrington and saxophonist Osby, explored more of the spontaneous jazz played over various rhythmic cycles – also known as M-Base, which is also a strong collective of several musicians since the mid-eighties that includes Carrington, Osby and bass guitarist Meshell Ndegeocello.

Back to Real Life Story, the 1989 disc has spawned Carrington’s latest disc, More To Say…(Real Life Story: Next Gen.). Like its successor, there are stellar supporting musicians, many who have played a part in Carrington’s career at one time or another: Les McCann, Jimmy Haslip who played on Structure, George Duke, Christian McBride, current members of her working band, and her father Sonny. Listeners can also expect a diversity of contemporary urban grooves weaved with shades of the roots of jazz, and a rousing version of another Beatles classic.

More To Say is more than just the Boston-based musician and now music clinician at Berklee coming full circle from her twenty-year solo recording debut. There are plenty of celebrations of love throughout this thirteen track gem.
On this disc from E1 Entertainment, here are some highlights to start relishing. Reflecting Carrington’s love of neo-soul, the zealous saxophone of Everette Harp and vocal fills by R&B singer Chris Walker provide a credible and true to form funkified rendition of the Angie Stone hit “Everyday.” “Oh Freedom” pays respect to human rights leaders like Martin Luther King,Jr., President Barack Obama, and the spiritual leader of India, Ghandi. With Carrington’s apparent love of The Beatles, the rich, commanding voice of Lori Perry effectively meshes gospel with jazz on the timeless hit “Let It Be.” A percussive-driven medley, “No Not One,” is dedicated to her ninety-seven year old grandmother – Helen Carrington -once again breaking down the M-Base school of thought this time incorporating American, Latin, and African rhythms. Proving hip-hop culture is a close cousin with jazz (check Guru’s genius hip-hop meets jazz/funk jam from 1993: Jazzmatazz Vol. 1 as one example), Carrington chooses rapper/producer Maestro1ton and MC JTronius from the Boston-based Agari Crew who flips the original easy-listening title track of Real Life Story into a joyous house music flow. For those who know Carrington’s versatile drumming skills, her voice is always pleasing to the ear; whether it is the ambient jazz of “Favorite Lullaby” alongside Kirk Whalum, or a soft but soulful blues drenched duet with McCann on “Hold Me Again.”

With the aforementioned tracks and others not mentioned here, the highly-recommended More To Say drops fully satisfying contemporary jazz in various sizes and shapes. Since Carrington’s early days as a dedicated student playing with some jazzmasters, she has covered a lot of ground; as an educator, producer,long-standing member of Herbie Hancock’s touring group, and as part of a vast circle of musical friends too numerous to mention. In the long run, there certainly was no harm done in Carrington’s choice to leave the alto saxophone and investing in her grandfathers’ old drum kit.

Peggy Oliver

The Urban Music Scene