Everything is About Breaking Habits

Terri Lyne Carrington is only the second drummer-bandleader to win a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group… and she has done it twice. The first was Art Blakey. Her first win was for Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue, and this year she won for her new recording New Standards Vol. 1. It’s an ambitious project of music written exclusively by women jazz composers and features some outstanding drumming. Terri also published a book called New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers, so musicians around the world can start playing the songs from her new record and book. She is also featured on Wayne Shorter’s new (Grammy Nominated) Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival, teaching the next generation of drummers at The Berklee College of Music, heading Berklee’s Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, and creating multi-media art installations for the Carr Center in Detroit.

This is only the most recent year in a career that has featured work with legendary jazz bandleaders like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and David Sanborn, over a hundred recordings, and playing on late night TV on the Arsenio Hall Show. Terri Lyne was a child prodigy at age 12, but now in her 50’s she is having a bit of a hard time adjusting to the title of “wise old master.” But that’s what 40 years of experience and success in the drumming and music world gets you!

MD: Congrats on all of the new projects and the Grammy award. I want to start by asking you about your new book, which isn’t a drum book. Can you explain the new book?

TLC: It’s a book of compositions that spans the long history of women composers. I’m trying to contribute to bringing some wider recognition to the plethora of current and active women composers and performers represented in the book. It’s important to know that the compositions are varying levels of difficulty, a high school student just getting it together could find pieces in there to play, and accomplished professionals could find some pieces that would kick their butts too. Advertisement

MD: Are there any of your tunes in the book?

TLC: Yes, there is a tune of mine called “Sansara (For Wayne)” that I wrote for Wayne Shorter.

MD: What’s your compositional process?

TLC: I usually hear something in my head first, and then I take it to the keyboard. I want the music to come from me, not from sitting down at a piano and trying to find something or coming up with a drum groove and building from there. I like to start with something that is (mostly) melodic and then find the harmonies on the keyboard that fit that idea best.

MD: Who are some of your compositional influences?

TLC: That’s a hard one because it is always changing and shifting. Of course, working so long with Wayne Shorter, he’s an influence but you can’t necessarily hear it. I have also played with Herbie Hancock for a long time. His harmonic sensibility has definitely influenced me. But there are different things that pop up, I could be listening to a young person’s record and hear something that inspires me to do something different. It comes out in my own way, and most of the time you can’t hear direct correlations, but I grab influences from all over the place.

MD: I’m sure Geri Allen’s composing has been an influence; you also included her song “Unconditional Love” in the book.

TLC: We played that tune all the time in the trio with Geri, esperanza spalding, and myself. Dianne Reeves recorded it, I recorded it, and there’s Geri’s original recording. When I play that live, I announce that we want to make this song a standard. It made sense to put that song in the book because it just feels like the style of a song that people refer to as a standard. Advertisement

There are some songs in the book that have longer forms, but we set a maximum of two pages. I didn’t want to go past two pages because I wanted people to be able to open the book and play the tunes. We also indexed the tunes by style, such as Blues, Groove, Odd Times and Mixed Meters, Ballad, and South American/Afro Cuban/Caribbean.

MD: I hope people start to use the book in some of the jazz colleges, because it offers a nice option to reading the usual tunes from the Real Book. How did you choose the tunes that you included in the book?

TLC: I started with the people first, I had a list of the people like Geri and Mary Lou Williams. There were some people like Maria Schneider and Carla Bley that I just wanted anything they would contribute. There are so many great songs… it was a long process. Advertisement

MD: How do the new record and the new book intersect? Did you conceive the whole idea at once? How did it come together?

TLC: When we started working on the book, I decided that I wanted to record music from it, and I planned that they would both come out simultaneously. I call this Volume 1 because I would like there to be several volumes. I am on a bit of a crusade of trying to get people to record the compositions, so Volume 2 or 3 could be done by other bandleaders and players.

MD: That’s a great concept. Who is playing on the new record?

TLC: There’s a core group of Kris Davis on piano, Linda Ma Han Oh on bass, Matthew Stevens on guitar, and Nicholas Payton on trumpet. There’s five vocal guests Dianne Reeves, Michael Mayo, Somi, Melanie Charles, and Samara Joy. I wrote the lyrics for Carla Bley’s song “Lawns,” I don’t like to pick favorite tracks but that is one of my favorites not just because I was involved with writing it, but it’s just the way Samara sings it. Carla’s song itself is so beautiful, and the space that we were able to create within it makes it one of my favorite tracks. The other guests on the album are Ravi Coltrane, Ambrose Akinmusire, Val Jeanty, Elana Pinderhughes, Negah Santos, and Julian Lage.

MD: How do find your thumbprint or interpret other people’s songs?

TLC: I learn the melody first and I live with that in my head for a while. I want to be able to sing the melody as best I can. Sometimes complicated melodies can be difficult, they have to marinate, but once I know the melody, I start hearing my own harmonies to accompany it. I start hearing spaces and places to expand rhythmically, I might add a beat or two or three here and there. I start hearing interludes, intros, and things that can set up the melody. Advertisement

MD: Are you ever concerned with interpreting someone’s song too much?

TLC: That’s a good question. When I did the Money Jungle album I was concerned because it was Duke Ellington’s music. But I started reading his books and looking at interviews. Duke seemed very forward thinking, he stopped using the word “jazz” around 1949. He said, “Jazz is freedom of expression,” when I heard that, I knew I was OK. With this record I trusted myself. I know what I believe to be quality. Honoring a person’s ideas is the essence of what we do when we solo. In solos we interpret the melody and improvise on it. They say composing is slowed down improvisation, and improvisation is sped up composing.

MD: You have many projects or bands— this New Standards band, Social Science, and others. Everything you do has a real specific voice to it. I was wondering how you conceptualize each project and how you keep them from expanding into each other, it’s really easy to lose that focus and let every project explode and become similar? You have great focus when you commit to a project.

TLC: Earlier in my career I was told by labels that I was all over the place when I made records. I was told that I was too ambitious, and that I would never make a good leader. In 1990, I even had a whole album shelved because it was “all over the place.” At that time, you couldn’t be too experimental with a major label. Advertisement

Now with independent music, artists, and radio – everything is changing. People can focus on songs instead of entire albums. The way that things are done now makes it easier to mix genres. With the Social Science album, we were able to mix jazz, pop, indie rock, with a touch of classical music influences. This new album is focused on the songs from the book and the composers. The focus is my interpretation of the songs from the book. There are many different styles of jazz represented on this new CD, the question became how do I make a project that’s cohesive within all those styles? We have a couple of groove songs, some contemporary improvisation pieces, a couple of ballads, and “Wind Flower” which has a modern straight-ahead swing approach. I hope people can hear how it all fits together.

MD: The thread that that runs through these projects is YOU. Although your playing has changed, you always sound like you. You’ve got a real strong thumbprint and a strong voice. How do you think you’ve grown while keeping your voice consistent?

TLC: Hopefully it’s changed in a good way. I feel like I’ve grown over the years, I’m not going to reinvent myself completely. I have tried to reinvent myself, but my dad once told me that you can’t run away from who you are. I think about that often because I don’t want to try to be someone else. At the same time, I want to let other people’s influences in as I keep developing and growing because I’m not happy remaining stagnant. Right now, it’s even trickier because I’m doing so many things outside of playing. It’s difficult to practice and keep up. If I was just playing the drums, I’d be a hell of a drummer. You know what I mean? But that was never my only interest. All these other interests have always been there, and now at age 57 you’re looking at the past and you’re looking at whatever time you have left, tomorrow is not promised for any of us. The music keeps me energized and the idea of remaining creative is what keeps me going, but my mission has shifted a little bit. I am thinking about other people more than myself. It doesn’t excite me to keep trying to “master” the instrument, I think I gave up on that around 18 or 19. At that age I was trying to be one of the “greatest drummers.” Everyone has those thoughts when they’re young. Now I just want to create good music and do it on a high level. I stopped putting that kind of pressure on myself. I have always shied away from anything competitive. I have never been into an “exhibition style of drumming.” That has never really been my thing. I don’t even really like to listen to it. But there is always new language sneaking in. I listen to a lot of new music, but it doesn’t take over. Advertisement

MD: What else has snuck in?

TLC: The sound of the entire drum kit has changed. I’ve always been comfortable with a certain kind of drum tuning. I tune a little lower than most jazz drummers, but now it’s not as low as the drummers that came behind me. I’m somewhere in the middle. Even though I don’t carry cymbals anymore, (I just order backline,) when I get new cymbals at the Zildjian factory I’m looking for a “newer sound,” which is difficult for me to find. The balance has changed too. I’m a bit top heavy with my right hand, I’m ride cymbal heavy. I keep trying to change my balance and lighten the ride but it’s difficult for me because I grew up playing like that. I’m still working on those kinds of things conceptually and physically.

The language and the sense of rhythm has changed too. When I talk about swing, there’s a certain bounce, and for whatever reason I have a certain bounce that (to me) starts to feel dated. When I hear that, I know I should try to figure out how to straighten it out a little bit, but my rhythmic balance is still a little more triplet-y. How do I straighten up my triplet? It can be challenging, but Roy Haynes did that a long time ago. There are so many variations within the triplet. Those are the things that I focus on.

MD: Then it also goes back to what your dad said about you can’t change who you are. I think that’s something that everyone must deal with. The concept of swing has changed. Do you find yourself dealing with that change within your groups or within your sideman work? Advertisement

TLC: First, let’s say side person work. I have a lot of female students that say “sideman” too. We are all side people; I would like for my male colleagues to start saying that. Language is important, I’m seeing current interviews of people saying, “I’m just trying to find the right guys to play with.” Even in just saying that, it has eliminated any possibility of women. We have to really start looking at our language.

MD: Absolutely! Words matter. Sorry about that.

TLC: I’m talking to myself too! I’m still embracing new language. You asked about the different aspects of the swing today. Honestly, it makes me a little shy about taking recording dates. I’m not sure that I can deliver a “modern” sound unless I’m in the driver’s seat. If somebody is used to playing with certain other drummers that have a very different approach, I don’t want to have to try to play like them. It’s a little tricky, I’m at a place where I just want to do what I feel. I used to take things just for the challenge, but now I don’t have the time for that. Now I only take things as a side person that I really feel is right for me artistically. That doesn’t mean I’m trying to take the easy route or not be challenged. I just want to make sure that my voice is going to make sense with the music. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense for me. There’s been some recordings that I’ve done where I’m questioning whether I should have done them.

MD: You are no longer a “young lion” on the scene, but it seems that you aren’t ready to be the “old master” either. Being in your 50s in music can be a weird time, how are you dealing with that? Advertisement

TLC: We all have to figure out what we have to offer, it’s not really up to us to decide when that kind of transition happens. Other people make those decisions based on what you’re contributing either educationally, professionally, or socially. For me it’s all those things combined. I started when I was 11 or 12 years old, so I’ve had a lot of experience. Now when I hear younger musicians referencing me in that “old master” way, I think, “Wait a minute, I’m trying to keep up with what this generation is bringing.” I feel like (my band) Social Science has a modern sound. But at the same time, I recognize that I have 40 more years of experience than my students, so it becomes an educational exchange.

MD: I think that’s the perfect phrase for it. Since you did hit the scene very young, and more and more musicians are finding success at a very young age (through social media,) can you talk about hitting the scene when you were so young? As someone who’s been through that, I would like to hear your thoughts.

TLC: Musicians used to have to pay dues in a certain way. There are only a few people that came out the box as band leaders. Most people went through serious side person work. I think it’s a problem when people put out their own records early on. People are starting to want to do their own thing at a much younger age but most of the great musicians started with on-stage apprenticeships. That is why we created Next Jazz Legacy with New Music USA and Mellon Foundation, to create a more inclusive jazz apprenticeship and mentorship program. We want to make sure that some of these young women and non-binary musicians get actual on-stage musical apprenticeship. There’s nothing that can really beat that. Advertisement

Most people that are “social media famous” haven’t played with anybody yet. I’m not even sure they can carry a whole gig! That’s a real problem. I feel like jazz education has made the music more academic sounding in many ways. There’s all these middle school and high school programs, summer programs… which creates young musician’s approach to the music. The kids with resources have a better chance at excelling in these programs. That excludes a lot of minorities. The merit system and judging is often based on technique. But that way of improvising is not necessarily based on how well you play the Blues or your rhythmic interpretation, and those are things that young African Americans learn first. Then you have the issue that young women are not getting supported by their middle school and high school band teachers and their college professors. The matriculation rate drops much quicker with women than it does with men. People understand the problem and they want diversity, they’ll acknowledge it, and be on the right side of it, but still not do anything to change it. People need to have the freedom, time, and resources to give their kids access to high art. Jazz is a high art, it’s not something easy, it’s not pop culture, it’s not something you can master quickly. It takes time and training – and resources.

MD: I was recently talking to a student about the audition process and just how unnatural it is.

TLC: Institutions must do better with the process, they must create a better system of judging what makes somebody “good” or not. We should look at their potential as well, more than the result of what we’re seeing. If you already have your playing together, that’s the easy part. It’s a lot harder to judge potential. You might get it wrong, but that’s necessary to have equity and justice in these systems.

MD: Can you talk about what your teaching and how your teaching has evolved?

TLC: It’s organic, I don’t have any real methods. I just look at what I think the student needs, I ask them what they think they need, and I figure out what I can offer them. No one can really teach you how to play jazz. We can point out what we think could be helpful, and point out a direction, but you can’t teach somebody how to swing. You can point out the issues, but you can’t make the feeling of the music come out of somebody else. I share things to listen to that will (hopefully) inspire them. The point is to inspire them to get whatever is missing in their playing. Sometimes you love something so much and you can keep working at it and maybe you’ll get it. For other people it’s just a natural thing that got there by osmosis, just by what you’ve been exposed to. Good teachers can figure out the deficits and figure out how they can help with weaknesses in somebody’s playing. But it’s not just playing. It’s the culture and the history that needs to be understood. If you really want to learn it, then you’re going to be eager to understand all those things. Advertisement

I will say that I’ve given up a little bit on the way that we were taught by learning the standards, learning repertoire, and taking it from there. It feels like there’s so much new music being written by young people; I just ask them to bring their original music. Before, I really insisted on a combination of standards and new music. I’m about helping students understand what happened before and, in the present, and helping them shape the future. How to do all that simultaneously is the challenge. Unfortunately, I feel that most students don’t have the same love or nostalgia for the jazz of the past. For me, that’s hard to come to grips with, so I had to just let that go.

MD: The older I get, the more I wonder if it’s possible to really teach almost anything. So much learning is experiential. The more I teach, the more I think that you just have to experience things and you have to drop people in and let them sink or swim.

TLC: It’s funny you say that because that’s exactly what Jack DeJohnette told me when I was 18. He’s been my biggest mentor. When I was 18, I was a little bored being here (in Boston.) I grew up here and I had been going to Berklee once a week since I was 11. Jack said you need to put yourself in the environment where the competition is the greatest and then you sink or swim. That was great advice and it made me feel like moving to New York was the right move. Advertisement

The other side of teaching is inspiring, and no matter how you do that, you’re teaching. That’s why it’s important to have that one-to-one connection. Then the teacher can see that they’re making a difference in someone’s life. Sometimes I detach a little bit from a student’s abilities, there are a lot of great students and there’s a lot of great players, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve seen some amazing players and I don’t know what happened to them after they left school.

MD: I interviewed your student Johnathan Pinson and I asked him about you. He said that you really care about your students.

TLC: I’m glad he felt that because that is that is where I come from. Teaching is caring. I relate to students as an exchange, not just as a musical exchange. If I was only doing that, I would go crazy.

MD: What did you learn from Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock about exchange and musical exchange?

TLC: It’s a continuum. Through playing with Wayne and Herbie, they were passing on the information (and experiences) that were passed on to them through playing with Miles (and others.) Now I am passing on that information to my students. I take this continuum very seriously and I share the wisdom that’s been imparted to me. Wayne is so easily quotable, I end up quoting him quite often, he’s a sage, he’s a guru, he’s somebody that gets people to follow him. He has a unique vision and perspective on life and music and the merger of the two. To him they’re not separate, Wayne and Herbie always talk about playing life and not music. That’s easy to say but it’s very hard to do. It’s hard to play life. You’re not taught to do that. I’ve incorporated a quote from bassist Ben Street for when someone hasn’t learned the Blues or the history and the culture of the music – then they’re playing “fake jazz.” It’s hard to put your entire life on the line and expose yourself in a way to find an identity in a music when there’s already been thousands of great musicians that you can listen to who have already found their own musical identities. But that’s the work. Advertisement

MD: David Garibaldi told me that he really started enjoying teaching when he started caring about his students as people. I really took that to heart. He was right.

TLC: I’ll connect that back to Wayne and Herbie because the biggest thing I have learned from them is the connection between what we do and bettering humanity. I really learned that lesson from them, I care about my students, that is my focus – caring about humanity. Everything Wayne and Herbie do musically is with that in mind, and I try to do it as well. That’s why I started the institute, to have a creative space concerned with gender justice and racial justice. I was hearing too many stories from students that weren’t nice and that really upset me.

MD: Tell me about your Institute for Jazz and Gender Justice?

TLC: I’ve had this charmed career so far and I’ve never had a problem working. I had access literally and figuratively to the main stage through my dad, but a lot of young women don’t have that. I didn’t experience a lot of overt gender discrimination. But I started talking to some people about my approach to teaching and I learned that my approach was WRONG. Before my eyes were opened, my approach for women students was, “Just go out there and do it, if you want it bad enough just go and do it, toughen up and just be better, and just let the discrimination roll off your back.” I learned that was NOT the right advice and guidance to be giving. Sure, that’s what I did, but no woman should ever have to deal with any of that. I knew that this was my music, and nobody was going to stop me from claiming it and doing it. But it’s not that simple for a lot of young women that are going through high school and middle school with band directors that aren’t even giving them the space or the opportunity to solo. It makes me sick how some educators feel that “this is men’s music.” These educators have really shaped the direction of the music without women’s voices. Once I came to understand that, and how unfair it’s been, I wanted to help the music (and women) develop to their fullest potential, which can’t happen without equitable representation.

In 2018 I created the Institute for Jazz and Gender Justice to deal head on with these issues at the college, and in the culture itself. I wanted to be a part of the movement toward more inclusion in jazz, but it had to start with creating a space where women and non-binary students could come without extra burdens and feel supported to be themselves. The other thing I’ve tried to do (which has been very difficult) is to not populate our classes at the institute more than 50% male. They (the young men) are tired of the performative masculinity in music. Advertisement

The institute is a great space to for me to learn as well, I am learning more about what this generation is thinking. It’s such an exciting time to hear and see people saying, “Time’s Up,” “Me Too,” and “Black Lives Matter.” But how does that affect music? We can’t say those things and think we’re “progressive” and then jump on the stage with all men all the time and think that’s OK. It’s not. I’ve been guilty of that. So many women that have succeeded are guilty of that because we’re trained to be like our colleagues.

MD: I want to ask a slightly self-serving question. When I first got this Modern Drummer position, I wanted to do “A Celebration of Women in Drumming” issue, and we did it, and we’ll do again. Then I had a conversation with Peter Erskine, we concluded that “A Celebration of Women in Drumming” was probably the opposite of what needed to be done. And that it could work against what we were trying to do. Is that accurate or not?

TLC: It’s actually both. I think an “all women anything” at this point is not the best idea because it silos women off to the side. It says, “OK we covered that,” and makes it easier not to incorporate women in the other issues and that’s really what needs to happen. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating women with a special issue. It’s the love-hate concern that I have with Women’s History and Black History Month. We need to get to a time where we don’t have a certain time to celebrate the contributions of African Americans or women in this country. We need to be celebrating women’s or African American’s contributions ALL of the time! The real goal should be to create integration and equality and keep pushing. The bottom line is when young girls see women playing music the more they’ll know it’s normal for them too. That’s where everybody’s involvement is important right now, the publications, the schools – everybody! I understand having a special issue that celebrates women drummers, but I would still like to see women integrated every month in a cool and creative way. But if you have one month that’s a little more heavily celebrated, I think that’s OK. Advertisement

Are you hip to Roni Kaspi? She plays drums with (bassist) Avishai Cohen, so she’s playing his really hard music and sounding fantastic. You should check her out.

MD: I will.

TLC: She went to Berklee and studied with Neil Smith, she’s baaad. And Savanah Harris is bad too!

MD: I’m not into musical labels, but your career is tough to pin down. You have played straight-ahead jazz, funk, fusion, and everything in between. How do you view yourself as a drummer?

TLC: I started off as a more traditional jazz drummer playing with Clark Terry when I was eighteen. I went on to play with Pharaoh Sanders, James Moody, and Stan Getz. When I got the gig with Wayne Shorter, I had to start playing funk and fusion because that’s the music he was playing at the time. Then I went with David Sanborn and then I did late night TV on the Arsenio Hall Show, I had to play everything for that gig. I did more groove-oriented music with Al Jarreau for three years, but during all of that I was playing with Herbie Hancock. With Herbie I had to play everything, we did quartet music, we did straight ahead (Gershwin’s World), we did Dis is da Drum which was more hip-hop and Future 2 Future which was whatever you want to call it. I’ve always seen myself kind of like Herbie in that way as far as moving through genres. I’m not a fusion drummer or a funk drummer. I didn’t grow up doing that. I’m a jazz drummer that plays other music. Jazz is my foundation. If you really look at my records, Real Life Story and More to Say were the only ones that felt a little more in that “groove zone.” I did Jazz is a Spirit and Structure, which are jazz albums, and then The Mosaic Project established me more as a bandleader in a way that felt right. Everything after that has been a lot more jazz and not really funk/fusion. There’s some groove music on Social Science, but it’s a double album and the whole second album is improvised and playing free. I do think that a kind of backbeat thing has been prevalent in a lot of my jazz playing. Even when I’m playing straight-ahead, you’ll hear a certain funky undertone.

I actually just did a Henry Threadgill project called Bakers Dozen, that vibe is really where my head and my heart are now. I am finally doing things that feel a little more open. I’m really excited about playing with people from that community because people don’t see me there, that’s also why I’m excited about playing with Kris Davis, because it’s different for me. People seem surprised to see me in that community, that’s what I mean about “reinventing myself.” I’m finally comfortable playing free! We were opening up to free moments playing with Wayne so I’ve become a lot more comfortable without structure (even though his music is structured.) The new Wayne Shorter Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival record is interesting because so much of it is free within a structure. It’s a beautiful album and I’m really proud of it because that’s where my head is now with drumming. Advertisement

MD: It’s interesting that you are getting to a more avant-garde place where you are feeling comfortable playing free. We both know that Jack has kept a foot in the avant-garde throughout his career, can you talk about how the avant-garde drumming tradition has affected your playing?

TLC: Jack is my biggest mentor, so I was always exposed to playing free, I just wasn’t doing it. Jack is the perfect example of someone that has the AACM as part of his foundation, but then he plays straight-ahead and can go all over the place. I was always coming out of Jack, everybody (sort of) knows that about me. I tried my best to not let his influence be ultra-pervasive, it could have always been more pervasive. I tried not to copy him, but it’s there in a huge way. If you go back to who his biggest influences are (Roy Haynes and Elvin Jones), it’s a continuum, and Roy is also a big influence on me. But the avant-garde influence has always been there.

As far as playing free or creative music I think you must be really grown up to play that music well and not sound like you’re just creating an energy. You really must utilize your musical wisdom by listening and playing at the same time. We do that in all music, especially if we’re improvising, but in the free approach you’re on input and output mode simultaneously and creating something with less boundaries. A lot of that music has structure and it’s very composed, but it’s composed differently. When you’re expressing freedom and claiming it in your life and art, maturity is important, and you have to be aware of not just history, but philosophy. Free music is expansive, it’s not just about playing the language you’ve learned from bebop. You’re trying to find your identity through different metrics. I think it’s a real opportunity to be purely in the moment and to deal with sound and breaking habits. My new record isn’t that kind of record, except for “Rounds,” which expresses some of that. But as I said, the second album of Social Science’s Waiting Games has a lot of that too. I’m somebody who just loves doing a lot of different things. Advertisement

MD: How much of the history of avant-garde/creative music have you gotten into?

TLC: Not enough! I like a lot of the musicians that came out of the AACM – Nicole Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Roscoe, Amina Claudine Myers…One of my favorite drummers is Andrew Cyrille. and I really love Jack’s record called Made in Chicago. It’s amazing. I play the Muhal track, “Chant,” all the time.

MD: How has the avant-garde music influenced your jazz playing?

TLC: I think it goes back to what I said about freedom. Jazz and creative music incorporates everything. These days I’m trying to be free within the boundaries, or create less boundaries. I don’t really play many straight-ahead jazz gigs anymore, there’s no reason for me to do that. I’m very nostalgic about that music so I would prefer not to hear it unless it’s on a certain level, and I can go listen to the records for that. Generally, I don’t want to play 32 bar standards or solo over forms anymore. If I’m going to play a standard, I want to see how we can play it differently. Can we play it out of time or move through the piece in a different way? I was doing a gig in Japan with Herbie, Wayne, and esperanza, and Wayne called “Devil May Care.” Wayne gave Herbie a hand-written chart, but Herbie didn’t know why Wayne wanted to play it. Then it hit Herbie and he said, “nostalgia,” and it all made sense.

MD: How has your jazz background influenced your groove-oriented playing?

TLC: Actually, the jazz approach that goes into my groove playing is not always what the music needs. The sensibility of being a jazz drummer adds to whatever situation you’re in. That means understanding form, musical sensitivity, phrasing, and adjusting within the music. How my jazz playing influences my groove playing is interesting because those are usually the things that I don’t like about my groove playing. The things that are jazz influences are: too many ghost notes in my left hand, a little too much lope in the beat when it should be a little straighter, and maybe not as heavy on the kick drum as it should be. When I am playing groove-oriented music, I am thinking from the bottom up, and with jazz, from the top down. You have to figure out how to adjust that balance, and sometimes my groove playing is a little top heavy. Advertisement

MD: Do you try to consciously make adjustments when you’re playing groove or jazz?

TLC: Yes, but sometimes you’re just in it and it’s difficult to make the adjustment. Everything is about breaking habits. We are who we are, but we always go back to our habits. The challenge is to break them and to continually grow. I’m going to be honest; I noticed a habit of mine – that I stopped playing the hi hat on two and four as much. I’ve always liked the hi hat to be a free agent, kind of like my left hand, especially if I’m playing any kind of straight-ahead music. I like the hi hat to interject ideas as opposed to keeping time. But I realized that when I go back to something that is more bebop influenced it became harder for me to keep two and four with the hi hat. At first, I thought I was just out of the habit of playing two and four with my left foot, but then I realized that my left knee bothers me sometimes, so it’s actually a physical reason as well that I stopped doing it, it’s all related.

MD: What other projects you’ve been working on recently and in the future?

TLC: I did a multi-disciplinary installation that just opened at the Carr Center in Detroit, as part of the Jazz Without Patriarchy Project. That also includes a children’s book called Three of a Kind, it’s the story of esperanza spalding, Geri Allen, and myself being young girls and wanting to play jazz. The whole idea is to inspire young girls. Of course, the new record and the book New Standards have been out for a bit, I’ll be recording a new Social Science album, and of course teaching and directing the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice.

April 2023 Issue