TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON

Drummer, composer, producer and clinician, Terri Lyne Carrington, was born in 1965 in Medford, Massachusetts. After an extensive touring career of over 20 years with luminaries like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, David Sanborn, Joe Sample, Cassandra Wilson, Clark Terry, Dianne Reeves and more, she recently returned to her hometown where she was appointed professor at her alma mater, Berklee College of Music. Terri Lyne also received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 2003. After studying under full scholarship at Berklee, with the encouragement of her mentor, Jack DeJohnette, Terri Lyne moved to New York in 1983. For 5 years she was a much in-demand musician, working with James Moody, Lester Bowie, Pharoah Sanders, and others. In the late ‘80s she relocated to Los Angeles, where she gained recognition on late night TV as the house drummer for the Arsenio Hall Show, then again in the late ‘90s as the drummer on the Quincy Jones late night TV show, VIBE, hosted by Sinbad. In 1989, Ms. Carrington released a GRAMMY nominated debut CD entitled Real Life Story, which featured Carlos Santana, Grover Washington Jr., Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Patrice Rushen, Gerald Albright, John Scofield, Robert Irving III, Greg Osby, Don Alias and Hiram Bullock. Other solo CDs include 2002’s Jazz is a Spirit, which features Herbie Hancock, Gary Thomas, Wallace Roney, Terence Blanchard, Kevin Eubanks, and Bob Hurst, and 2004’s Structure, a cooperative group which features Adam Rogers, Jimmy Haslip and Greg Osby. Both CDs were released on the Europe-based ACT Music label, and enjoyed considerable media attention and critical acclaim in the European and Japanese markets. Her production and songwriting collaborations with artists such as Gino Vannelli, Peabo Bryson, Dianne Reeves, Siedah Garrett, Marilyn Scott have produced notable works as well, including a special song commissioned by the Atlanta Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games, “Always Reach for Your Dreams,” (featuring Peabo Bryson), and her production of the Dianne Reeves GRAMMY-nominated CD, That Day, which hovered at the top of the music charts for many months. Terri Lyne has played on many recordings throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s thru today. Notable examples of her work include Herbie Hancock’s GRAMMY Award winning CD Gershwin’s World, where she played alongside Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder. She has toured with each of Mr. Hancock’s musical configurations (from electric to acoustic) over the last 10 years and is featured on his Future2Future DVD. After a hiatus from the U.S. recording scene as a solo recording artist, Terri Lyne returned in 2008 with More To Say... (Real Life Story: NextGen). She performs with friends and colleagues with whom she has been working with in her 20-year-plus career. Joining Carrington on More to Say is an impressive all-star cast of jazz and contemporary jazz instrumentalists, including George Duke, Everette Harp, Kirk Whalum, Jimmy Haslip, Greg Phillingaines, Gregoire Maret, Christian McBride, Danilo Perez, Patrice Rushen, Robert Irving III (who also serves as co-producer), Chuck Loeb, Tineke Postma, Ray Fuller, Dwight Sills, Anthony Wilson, Les McCann and a special appearance by her dad, Sonny Carrington, on tenor. In addition, Terri Lyne collaborates with esteemed vocalist Nancy Wilson for the song, “Imagine This.” In July 2011, Terry Lyne releases The Mosaic Project, her fifth recording overall and first on Concord Jazz. Her new album once again gathers a myriad of voices and crystallizes them into a multi-faceted whole that far outweighs the sum of its parts. She produced the 14-song set which features some of the most prominent female jazz artists of the last few decades: Esperanza Spalding, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sheila E., Nona Hendryx, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen and several others. Terri Lyne says the emergence of so many great female jazz artists is what finally makes an album like The Mosaic Project possible, more so now than in decades past.