Know This Name and Impress Jazz Lovers: Terri Lyne Carrington

Just as it can be difficult for people to name five or more women artists, it’s far from easy to name female jazz musicians who are not vocalists.

Here’s one name you need to know: Terri Lyne Carrington, one of the best jazz drummers alive today.

Born in 1965, Carrington was a child prodigy. She established a solid reputation by her mid-20s, playing as the drummer for the Arsenio Hall Show. I first heard her name around this time. I was listening to a show on female jazz instrumentalists and remember hearing Carrington mentioned alongside women such as Mary Lou Williams and Dorothy Donegan. Over the years she performed with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Stan Getz, and other big names in the jazz world.

Carrington was not yet 25 when she released her first album, Real Life Story, which was nominated for a Grammy in the category Best Jazz Fusion Performance. But it is only in the past decade that she has really made her mark in recorded music. In 2011 her album The Mosaic Project, performed entirely by women, won Best Jazz Vocal Album. In 2013 she became the first woman to win Best Jazz Instrumental Album with Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue, her reinterpretation of a 1963 album by Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach. She also won Best Jazz Vocal Album for an album she produced, Beautiful Life by Dianne Reeves.

While much of the material on these albums was written by others, she has included her own songs as well. In November she released a new double-album, Waiting Game, which includes several original songs. Waiting Game also builds on the theme of social justice, which has been present to a lesser extent in her other albums. She writes boldly, unafraid to take a provocative stand. But, as Downbeat points out with a quotation from her press release, Carrington is writing to make a difference. “At some point you have to figure out your purpose in life,” she writes. “There are a lot of drummers deemed ‘great.’ For me, that’s not as important as the legacy you leave behind.”