QLS Classic: Terri Lyne Carrington

In honor of Women's History Month, travel back to a 2022 conversation with the legendary prodigy drummer and visionary Terri Lyne Carrington, as she shares her stories of being a confident child amongst the greats. She breaks down earning the respect of the architects of Jazz, working on the Arsenio Hall Show, and appearing in Beat Street. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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  We want to make the healthcare system better for everyone. I care because I want to make a difference. That's what committed to care means to me. Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Hi, this is Sugar Steve from Questlove Supreme. This March, we're celebrating Women's History at QLS, something that we've done for years. Back in March of 2022, we spoke to Teri Lynn Carrington about her years as a jazz prodigy, some of the prejudice she faced as a young female drummer playing with elder males, and how she kicks down the doors for others as founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. As a jazz guy, I really enjoyed this episode. Whether you heard it when it was first released or this is your first time, we hope you enjoy.

• 2:19Speaker 00

  Ladies and gentlemen, another episode of Questlove Supreme. I'm your host Questlove. We got Team Supreme in the head house. Von Tigglow. Wow, new, if Bill Sherman were here, he would notice that you're in yet another room in the house? Yeah, this is my studio. It's just easier for me here. Normally I record in my living room, but my son is going to go to school downstairs, so I just bring it upstairs to the studio. Wait, virtual school is still going on? Or is it optional now? It's well, we, yeah, it's optional. We did it. He'll be going back to classroom for the junior year, but for this year, the numbers around here were crazy, so we put him in virtual. Smart. We gotta be smart, man. Uh, Steve, where are you at right now?

• 3:04Speaker 00

  I'm where you are in the 67 degrees at 30 Rock. We're freezing in 30 Rock right now.

• 3:10Speaker 05

  Keep that COVID out.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  It's cold. I know. Freeze the COVID out, definitely. Uh, Lyia, where are you at with your black art behind you?

• 3:19Speaker 05

  Limer all day. That's where I'm at.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Yo, Lyia, I forgot to tell you.

• 3:24Speaker 05

  You was here.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  I took my first visit to Limer Park.

• 3:26Speaker 05

  You know what? I can't stand you.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  I only had, only had like 35 minutes to, to run the Juneteenth.

• 3:35Speaker 05

  He was at the Juneteenth Festival.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  I felt like I was in a legit episode of Insecure, yo.

• 3:41Speaker 05

  Somebody told me they saw Black Thought. I thought they was lying.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  It was awesome. Yeah, I went to, uh, Juneteenth for half a second. Then I went to, uh, the, the body roll party like in another side of LA, like Saturday, man. It was, it was one of the nicest, blackest experiences I've ever had in Los Angeles.

• 3:59Speaker 05

  People don't know about that. I'm glad you said that.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  I forgot. Yeah, you're, you're a Limer Parker. Did you enjoy it?

• 4:05Speaker 05

  I, I loved it. This was an amazing Juneteenth weekend. I mean, thank God we came through. It was looking sketchy for a minute because of Walmart and them, but it came through nicely.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Oh, the damn ice cream.

• 4:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:18Speaker 06

  You know Billy Higgins had the world stage there. So you probably, if you, this is your first time in Limerick Park, yeah, then you never experienced that, but that was really dope back in the day.

• 4:30Speaker 05

  I'm learning. I'm learning.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  Well, you know, if we, if we bring the festival back to Los Angeles, I think we're going to travel with it. So we're looking at like Texas and other spots, but I definitely want to do another Juneteenth. Oh God, did I, yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 05

  Yes, you did. Yes, you did. You did it. You did. It's okay.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Well, there's nothing exclusive about wanting to spread the Juneteenth love around. Anyway, y'all, as I was saying, you know, I would say that this year for me has been an awesome year for bucket listing. And I'm checking, I guess you could say I'm checking a lot of my musical heroes, bringing them on the show and nerding out on them. And our guest today is absolutely no exception. I'll say that she's probably the first young person, male or female, the first young person that I ever saw on a drum set. And I guess at the time when I first, I forget the name of the show, it was like on PBS, like Reebop or

• 5:32Speaker 00

  something like that. I forget what it was, but it was definitely one of those like local Boston shows or whatever. And to see a young kid on a drum set definitely made a, an impression on me. When I was a kid, I forget what year it was, like I was like six or seven when I first saw you. I think you were like 12, 13 or whatever. But she's literally done it all. Grammys, college professor, two time late night bandleader, activist producer, collaborated with such luminaries like the great Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock. I know that you have to be in the meditation of you, if you.

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Collaborate with those two.

• 6:20Speaker 06

  But I'm a bad Buddhist.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's Ron Spalding, the whole mosaic project with, with, you know, Diana Krall and, and, and, and the likes, Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, Clark Terry, Woody Shaw, I can go on and on and on. Uh, this has been a long time coming. Thank you for your patience because this, this is one of these episodes where, you know, because of the courses and events of my life in the last month or so, I've had to put this off at least three or four times. You've been very patient. Finally, I can say, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Questlove Supreme, Terry Lynn Carrington. Thank you. Yes, appreciate it.

• 6:56Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  How are you today?

• 6:59Speaker 06

  I'm great. It's my pleasure talking to you. I'm a big fan and I love everything that you do. So the admiration is mutual.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  We've, we've never had a, a in-depth heart-to-heart like conversation. So whenever I hear through other people like, oh, you know, Terry says, what's up? Whatever, you know, occasionally you've come by like, I've seen you play a few gigs or whatever and I'm still mind blown like, there's, there's always this, this thing where, you know, jazz musicians are so not above the fray, but just like above whatever is below them as far as pop music is concerned or whatever, like.

• 7:37Speaker 06

  It's all one thing. It's all black music. You know, like, I mean, it all comes from the blues. So it, there was something, something would be wrong with me if I didn't appreciate what you do. You know, so that would be like, you know, if I had a jazz friend that, you know, didn't appreciate you, I would be looking at them sideways.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Well, I, I thank you for that. I appreciate it. Where, where are you talking to us right now from? You have a very interesting background. It's, it looks like a mall and a prison at the same time.

• 8:09Speaker 06

  Uh, I have a few backgrounds. Um, I'm, I'm at home. Uh, but that's just my Berkeley background. Here's another Berkeley background.

• 8:17Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 8:18Speaker 06

  Here's a animated one with, uh, I don't know who's that? So Shikakyo Shiva Red and Alice Coltrane. Here's one. I just want to see Obama drop the mic.

• 8:28Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 8:29Speaker 06

  When I'm missing my grandmother.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 8:32Speaker 06

  Uh, here's our slogan. Uh, you can't really see it, but it's jazz without patriarchy. Oh, and this one you might recognize. This is from Soul because you know, I was a consultant on Soul.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:43Speaker 06

  You knew that.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  I know. I know, like, they, they, they went above and beyond the call of duty to ask every

• 8:50Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  jazz luminary for their, for their, uh, advice.

• 8:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was fun doing that. I was doing some meetings. The first one, Herbie was at, and I was probably the only one in the room that, you know, might have a difference in opinion, you know, with Herbie and be able to actually say it.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 9:07Speaker 06

  You know what I mean? Because everybody gets scared. So.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Speak up, right.

• 9:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, you know.

• 9:12Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 9:12Speaker 06

  And here's my, my, uh, my biggest mentor.

• 9:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, so anyway.

• 9:18Speaker 05

  We just had him on the show, Kyle Swayn Shorter.

• 9:21Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah?

• 9:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 06

  Oh, cool.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, we, I, I was shocked at the amount of feedback we got for that particular episode. Like, a lot of heavy jazz heads.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  Hit us and kinda thanked us for asking questions that we norm, like, aren't normally asked, you know, in other.

• 9:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 9:41Speaker 05

  Just letting him talk. That's what we did. We let him talk.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 9:45Speaker 06

  That's the right thing.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  So, I'm gonna start with you, Terry, the way I always start the episode. Can you tell me what your first musical memory was?

• 9:54Speaker 06

  Wow, you know, they happened so long ago that it's kind of like a movie that I'm a part of that I'm, I watched and it feels real because I watched it, but was I really there? You know what I mean? Like, I played, uh, Tambourine when I was five years old on stage with Rosson Roland Kirk, and that was probably the first time I was on stage.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  How many saxophones did he play?

• 10:18Speaker 06

  Always, at least three. Until he had a stroke, and then I would see him after that, and then he'd play with one hand, one saxophone, but he might have even worked two with the one hand.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:28Speaker 06

  You know.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Was any of that surreal to you? I mean, I, I'm, with, with most kids that I see, especially kids that are I guess you could say progeny of like other, I, I know that, uh, your father and your grandfather um, were musicians as well, so oftentimes.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  You know, at least there's a realization moment of what you're really into, but that usually comes in your teens. But in the beginning, it's just like, hey, this dad and this granddad and here's some musicians around the house like, but did anything strike you odd about this, you know, this, this guy with dread, or I don't know if he had dreadlocks back then, but playing three saxophones at the same time, like, nothing seem odd about that to you?

• 11:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, but you know, when you're young, you don't really pay attention to all that. Like, you're just doing you and I was having fun. So, and I was getting attention. So I knew I was different from the other, you know, elementary school kids that I was hanging out with because Ebony came to school to take pictures of me, you know, when I was uh, eleven.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  What a flex.

• 11:34Speaker 05

  Listen.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  What was home like after that?

• 11:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, I mean, from the black kids, you know, there might have been, I don't know, six or seven in my class. So of course they knew what was happening. The other kids, I'm not sure they knew what Ebony was.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Where did you grow up? Where were you born?

• 11:52Speaker 06

  In Medford, Massachusetts.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  How far is that from?

• 11:57Speaker 06

  Boston.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  It's anyone outside of New England, like Massachusetts, just like Boston and then a bunch of uh,

• 12:04Speaker 06

  Suburbs.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  Green areas.

• 12:06Speaker 05

  Where New Edition's from. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:08Speaker 06

  Roxbury.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  Oh, oh, damn. You grew up in Roxbury?

• 12:12Speaker 06

  Oh, hell no.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:14Speaker 06

  I thought I could go to Roxbury, but my dad would remind me, you know, you're from West Medford. But our, our um, area of town, West Medford was the most heavily settled black area outside of Boston. Um, so like, for instance, in my high schools, 4,000 people in the high school, uh, close to 4,000. And at the time, when I was in high school, there were 365 black kids, which is not quite even 10%, but when we had lunch, you know, I'm sitting with 200 black kids. So it felt like it was, you know, it was a black environment, you know, for our circle.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  But was, was Boston the south of the north? Again, like, I'm so triggered by anything to do with Massachusetts. I just naturally think that Massachusetts is just one of these states that escaped, you know, the, the Confederate, you know, just based on.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  What we've learned about it, but like in your childhood, was it, was it like that at all? Or?

• 13:19Speaker 06

  I mean, I, I came like right after the busing situation and there was like a, a bit of a riot at my high school about, you know, surrounded by some kind of ra- or about some kind of racial incident. Uh, but that happened right before I got to high school. And I mean, you know, I was going into Boston weekly at least. I got a scholarship to Berkeley when I was 11. And I was going weekly.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was gonna say, you went to Berkeley while still in, in junior high school, correct?

• 13:55Speaker 06

  Well, I was, yeah, in elementary when I started. But, um, that, I went once a week, um, so it wasn't like that big a deal, you know? I went after school once a week and took private lessons and ensemble.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  That's a big deal.

• 14:10Speaker 06

  Special, what I mean is it wasn't like stressful.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  Berkeley reject. That's a big deal.

• 14:17Speaker 06

  Well, then that's their loss.

• 14:18Speaker 05

  Right?

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Damn right. I'm not bitter at all.

• 14:23Speaker 06

  But what I must say though is, um, you know, Boston is in a weird way is kind of the most liberal and conservative places you'll ever be. It's a total, you know, dichotomy of, of these things and, um, everybody hates the Celtics and all that. But, you know, nobody ever talks about how, uh, we had the first black coach and one of the first black players.

• 14:45Speaker 05

  Hmm. I never thought that about the Celtics. For real?

• 14:49Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 14:52Speaker 06

  So I'm just saying like, there's a lot of things wrong racially with what's happened here. But, you know, there's, it's, it's not all bad and there were, you know, places, uh, like where I grew up. They had heavily populated black areas and it was very, you know, rich in culture.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  All right. So if, if ever the Patriots or the Celtics win again, I'll, I'll add you to my new addition pile. Like, okay, well. At least you seven are happy, so.

• 15:21Speaker 05

  That and universal healthcare, mayor. Massachusetts did that first, too. Remember free healthcare? Yeah, yeah.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 15:27Speaker 06

  I mean, you know, if you're from a place, there's gotta be some love, you know, like I used to, I used to hate to go to Philadelphia, but you know, I got, I got, I got happier as I went, you know. So, as I learned more about the city, really, you know, I used to, not like Chicago, you know, whatever, like you, you have these experiences and it's just as you grow, you have the other experiences that can make a place have some nostalgia at the, at the very least.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  You didn't like traveling in general, or just?

• 15:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, well, I liked it. Now I don't particularly care for it. I have a love hate relationship because I am happiest sometimes when I'm just in a hotel room and can close the shades and lock everybody out.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  I know.

• 16:14Speaker 06

  Cause I'm not dealing with, oh, I gotta fix this in my house. You know, I come home and I get stressed. I'm like, oh my God, I gotta paint the house. I need a new roof. You know, all those things start kicking in, but whatever way I can just, yeah, I can just focus on whatever it is I'm doing.

• 16:29Speaker 05

  Can I ask a question? Cause I just wanna know, you say from the jump jazz was in your life in the sense that like no other, you weren't, even as a kid in school, cause I mean, you said Berkeley when you were 11. So I'm like, did anything else ever get into the household or into your ears outside of like, okay?

• 16:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I was, I mean, I listened to the radio and I listened to, you know, like my father started me off listening to what he would consider more rhythm and blues, which at the time, we're talking about the early 70s. Uh, but for him, like he played in horn sections with James Brown and Ruth Brown and people like that when he was in college. And, um, so that's the kind of music he started me off listening to because he thought I would be able to relate to that, you know, more than John Coltrane or Miles Davis. So I was listening to lots of organ, you know, lots of, lots of blues, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, and you know, some rhythm and blues, of course, James Brown, Ray, Ray, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin.

• 17:28Speaker 06

  And those are the records, you know, a lot of the records that I remember, you know, as a kid.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Can you tell me the first album that you purchased with your own money? Not just had around the house, like, oh, let me see what dad's James Brown's album are into, but like.

• 17:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, you know, like, I don't know if I purchased it, but I think I must have asked my parents to get, uh, get it for me because I'm not sure they would have. For whatever reason, I was obsessed. And I remember I had one of those kids, uh, it was green too, one of those kids, uh, phonograph players that had a little speaker built in.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Right. Post preschool or whatever, Fisher Price, uh,

• 18:08Speaker 05

  Fisher Price.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Record players.

• 18:09Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 18:10Speaker 00

  I feel like I know what this record, or what was the record?

• 18:12Speaker 06

  I don't know, it was, um, The Fifth Dimension.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 18:16Speaker 06

  It was, uh, uh, I was obsessed with Aquarius, uh.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 18:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, for some reason.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 18:24Speaker 06

  The A- Age of the Aquarius.

• 18:26Speaker 05

  I'm like, are you one?

• 18:27Speaker 06

  No, no. No, I'm a Leo.

• 18:30Speaker 05

  Okay. Boss, boss.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  I forget.

• 18:35Speaker 06

  What, for that being the record?

• 18:36Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just saying. No, it's for being a Leo, that's all, no. Get extra points if you're an Aquarius. For drumming, though, you know, I, I know that there's a sect of people whose opinions are like, you know, at least for gender pairing, like, there are instruments that's probably deemed that men should use only as far as masculine or feminine, whatever, like, this, women on drums really, in my opinion, like, an adjustment pre nineteen eighties. But at all, did anyone ever discourage you? Like, well, why don't you try the piano or maybe a guitar? Violin. Yeah. Clarinet.

• 19:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't know if anybody really ever discouraged me. I, um, and I was, you know, I, I, I was confident at a young age. So, uh, like, I think what tells the story about that for me the best is when I met Buddy Rich for the first time. I was ten, I was a guest with Clark Terry.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Was he nice to you?

• 19:43Speaker 06

  Well, that was the thing. Everybody said, stay away from him, he's in a really bad mood. And I didn't care, and I went up to him anyway. And, uh, so then somebody stepped in and said, well, let me introduce you to young Terry, she's a guest with Clark Terry. And he said, oh, yeah, you better not be any good. And I just looked at him and said, well, who's gonna stop me?

• 20:01Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Hey.

• 20:04Speaker 06

  And then he said, he kind of took a step back, and then he said, you wanna come play with my band? You see what I mean?

• 20:13Speaker 05

  Flex, flex.

• 20:15Speaker 06

  No, but it, well, it wasn't that, it was just.

• 20:17Speaker 05

  Beautiful flex.

• 20:18Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, because I think it's how you're raised and, and I, I, I was raised that this is my music.

• 20:24Speaker 05

  Where did that confidence come from, Terry? Like, what, do you remember, like, did your parents something say to you, like, the impetus of that, like?

• 20:31Speaker 06

  I think it's who you are, and that's why I do so much, um, gender equity work now, because every woman shouldn't have to be like me. I would go head to head with any man, you know what I mean? And I'm, I'm not intimidated by anyone. Um, I can be, I can be shy and I can be insecure. Of course, we're all insecure. If I was playing a gig next to you, I would be insecure, especially if I had to play groove, I'd be like, oh, man, oh, he's sitting next to me, damn.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  She must be talking about Sugar Steve right now.

• 21:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's crazy, Amir, I know.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  You're talking about Sugar Steve and his engineering skills, or Fontaine Ryman. That's who she's talking about.

• 21:09Speaker 06

  No, I'm serious. And so I'm just saying, that doesn't mean, I think you can be confident and that be a part of your personality, which doesn't mean there's these other things that, you know, aren't there as well. But you shouldn't have to be like me to make it, you know, and you, you shouldn't have to have that kind of personality as a woman to, to have the opportunity or the access or mentorship or apprenticeships. And so that's, you know, when I realized that, that's when I, because I had been looking at women saying, well, what do you mean? Just do it, you know, like, what, what do you mean? Just, what, later for them, you know, like, somebody discovers you, that should give you more impetus to,

• 21:47Speaker 06

  you know, then I realized, you know, they have a nervous breakdowns and shit, you know, like, so I, I, I, I had to look at it differently.

• 21:55Speaker 05

  Because everybody doesn't have a foundation, because you still had some type of foundation to let you know that that is the way to think. And these women didn't have that, so.

• 22:04Speaker 06

  And, and they don't need to. That's the whole thing. We're all different, you know, we don't have to be so, I, I was nothing, around nothing but men playing, you know, for a long time. And so I end up kind of acting like them, you know, and not be, you know, having a problem being around men all the time. So I think that, uh, you know, that we, we should celebrate our differences. And what does a woman's aesthetic sound like in the music? You know, I think that's the question we should start to ask.

• 22:35Speaker 00

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  Behind every chart-topping hit, you know by heart there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening. Some basement, some bedroom. Somebody with headphones on at 3:00 in the morning chasing a thing they couldn't even name yet. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original. Already moving, already shaking things up, already looping that one bar, already off tempo. On purpose, because on purpose was the point. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first. Not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there, living stories worth telling. What's yours?

• 24:38Speaker 00

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• 24:44Speaker 00

  I don't think I've ever went public on record with, in high school, I once had a masterclass kinda session with a well-known patriarch of jazz music. I guess you could say he was a total dick. And, you know, that's actually where I was leaning towards, like, especially there's a generation of cats who were sort of in the game in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s who, you know, don't mince words at all. They don't suffer any fools, they're very blatant and honest or whatever. This guy just tore me up, man.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  Like, everything, I didn't even get on the set and he just looked at the loud shirt I was wearing, looked at my hair, saying, "Oh, see, I wouldn't hire you because your hair is just like a girl's right now." You know, with that, with them snakes in your hair or whatever. And like, he was just going in. And I remember, like, after that day, that day I like distinctively remember it, like, I'm not going the Young Lion route. Because, you know, I went to school with Christian McBride and Joey at Performing Arts High School. And so, I was on that, that sort of track every day, trying to keep up with those two and become a Young Lion, like, you know, because all those cats in Philly were just

• 26:11Speaker 00

  like, even in high school, like, doing sessions and what I, you know, I had the opposite reaction. I actually, that kinda like just got in my head and, you know, maybe like a year later, that's when I decided, okay, I'm gonna go the Roots route because, you know, he told me that I don't look like a serious jazz cat. And, you know, it's, I'm, I'm- And now you can buy him.

• 26:40Speaker 06

  That's what I was about to say, well, where is he now?

• 26:42Speaker 05

  At least his masters.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  No, no, this, this, you know, this, this guy's a, a legacy god in the world of jazz right now. You know, no longer with us, but.

• 26:53Speaker 06

  You don't wanna, you don't wanna name his name, no?

• 26:55Speaker 05

  He not wanna say his name.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  Hey, dog, it was Ellis Marcellus. I'll just let it out there.

• 26:59Speaker 06

  Oh, well, yeah, well, then that makes sense. Well, I just mean, I've, I've, you know, he was, you know, very kind to me, actually. He coached us once, but I've heard.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  I feel like you're a disarming person. I feel like at the age of 10, you were very disarming with anyone that you met, you know, that would encourage you.

• 27:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I think that that's helped, you know, with the gender equity work now, because I'll get a lot of older musicians calling me, saying, you know, I guess I've been an old fart, or, you know, thanks for pointing this out. But, you know, the bottom line is, it shouldn't have to be that, and, and that people should recognize what they're doing, and there are a lot of older musicians that basically bought into this, you know, patriarchy and bought into the, bought into the hyper masculinity. And what I'm finding is there's a lot of young musicians, uh, from teaching at Berkeley, a lot of young male musicians, that aren't digging the hyper masculinity. So they actually come to our institute, because, because some people get it twisted and think

• 27:59Speaker 06

  that our institute is for women musicians or non-binary musicians. It's a space that they can come and, and make mistakes and, and learn the music without, uh, having their guard up. But we have about 50% uh, young men in our institute as well, because they're rejecting the hyper masculinity in, in jazz as well. And I think that we're really seeing a turning point right now. It's starting to really shift. And I think that the music needs that, uh, for it to live up to its full potential.

• 28:30Speaker 05

  So let me ask you as a professor then, this is about the patriarchy, because how do you, since it was a jazz, a, a art form built on that, doesn't it come to a certain point where you're at an impasse in explaining, and, you know, because I feel like we're in this point too of sometimes, it's either that's what it was and we're trying to change it, or how do we ma- make that still legendary even though that was a problem? Like, how do we keep that, you know?

• 28:58Speaker 06

  The patriarchy was, patriarchy was never good. It wasn't good for anybody.

• 29:02Speaker 05

  Right.

• 29:02Speaker 06

  It was white, white male patriarchy, to be specific. Um, but, you know. I think that the oppressed learn how to oppress without trying. It's just, you know, that's what happens. And I felt, I feel like this was, you know, this is just, you know, my opinion. But I feel like jazz was a space for, for black men to, uh, you know, really feel freedom.

• 29:25Speaker 05

  Right, black men.

• 29:27Speaker 06

  Exactly, you know, because, I mean, well, well, you go back, and I've talked to Angela Davis about this and,

• 29:32Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:33Speaker 06

  and, uh, different people because when slavery ended, you know, black people couldn't travel, right? They, you couldn't go anywhere. Mm-hmm. And then when slavery ended, and there was a little bit of freedom, the first one, I think, that people took advantage of was being able to move, you know, being able to, to, to go to another town and, and, you know, whether you're playing on the street or in a juke joint or wherever, you can bring your guitar and you could, but it wasn't safe still for women to do that, right?

• 30:01Speaker 05

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 30:03Speaker 06

  And, and these places were not places, uh, respectable women should, women should be in.

• 30:09Speaker 05

  But they were there enjoying the music, though, they...

• 30:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, but not all women, you know.

• 30:16Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 30:16Speaker 06

  You know, there, there's a lot of, of...

• 30:18Speaker 05

  Certain types of women, certain types.

• 30:19Speaker 06

  Brothels.

• 30:20Speaker 05

  Right, right, right, I guess.

• 30:20Speaker 06

  You know, the music was in these places. Right. So, yeah, so it was, that's what the music kind of, where it was birthed, right? So it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't spaces necessarily for women to discover their artistic, uh, you know, they, they discover that they could actually do this. Um, so they were always off to the side, in the house, in the church, wherever, you know, and of course, playing piano. And that's why I think that's so acceptable, you know, women always play piano in the house and in the church, right? Mm-hmm. Um, so then when women started traveling and getting into, you know, music and the blues, a lot of it was, uh, as singers, writers, vocalists.

• 31:00Speaker 06

  So then you had like, you know, Bessie Smith and, um, uh, Mamie Smith and, you know, some of the first blues women, uh, Marianne, but th- they became also, um...

• 31:15Speaker 06

  Like sexualized and and they had, you know, they were entertainers. You know, it wasn't necessarily as considered serious work.

• 31:23Speaker 05

  Musicians.

• 31:24Speaker 06

  Were doing the serious, you know, it was like, let's commodify this. We can commodify this, you know, woman standing up front singing the blues more than we can commodify the dude with the guitar. Kind of singing the blues. So, so those blues singers, the women, they sold more records.

• 31:41Speaker 05

  Hmm, okay.

• 31:43Speaker 06

  But Bessie Smith was selling, yeah. So, my point is, it started off like that. And, you know, then later, of course, in the forties, when the war happened, all the women emerged playing because so many men were gone.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Gone to war, man.

• 31:57Speaker 06

  What blows my mind is that when they came back from the war, uh, it seemed like some women disappeared. You know, it came back to the, you know, those practices. And none of this really, you know, surprises me. Like, when I look up, uh, I, I was ignorant to the story of Liberia. And I just kind of find out, found out about that.

• 32:18Speaker 05

  About the return?

• 32:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. And like, when I saw some footage, uh, of all the, the black people with the top hats and looking, trying to look British. And then colonizing basically the Africans. I'm like, well, why would I expect anything different in jazz? I mean, you know what I mean? It's kind of, or in music, you know, it's like, when you're oppressed, you just like.

• 32:44Speaker 05

  You take that blueprint.

• 32:45Speaker 06

  It's human nature. Yeah, exactly. Without even knowing it's wrong sometimes, you know? Yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  So, do you feel like the age of the abusive, like, in, in where we are now? Um, like hip hop is, is changing. Where, you know, there's a sort of like a, a, a slow sea change.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Of a lot of toxic attitudes that were long associated with hip hop. You know, we're now just starting to see the seeds of it growing and, you know, I will, we'll assume that if it's still a thing in the 50s and 60s, 2050, 2060, uh, that we'll see a total turnaround, but like, kind of the, the age of the abusive actor in Whiplash. Oh, Whiplash, oh, got you. J.K. Simmons. J.K. Simmons, yeah. How abusive he was in Whiplash. When you see that, it was, was that to you? Was it triggering?

• 33:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, I didn't see Whiplash, you know, um.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  What? I, I, everyone, when Whiplash came out, literally everyone asked me about it. Were, did people?

• 33:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's another one about the drummer too, right? The one that was lost his hearing. I didn't see that.

• 34:01Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  That was the one with, uh, your boy, um, uh. I'm about to say Freddie Mercury. Uh, yeah, but, uh.

• 34:09Speaker 06

  I saw that, though.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  The Sound of Metal, that's the name of it.

• 34:12Speaker 06

  Sound of Metal, yeah.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  That movie's amazing. That shit is great.

• 34:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, I have so many thoughts, you know, about that, uh, but the first one that just came to my mind is, um, damn, how do I say this?

• 34:23Speaker 05

  No, say it.

• 34:24Speaker 06

  Politically correct. I just mean like, you know, I, I, I, I'm not so attracted to, uh, you know, white dudes suffering from some drum lessons. It just feels a little like this.

• 34:38Speaker 00

  God damn it, straight from the book of Fontaine.

• 34:43Speaker 05

  Drama, white trauma.

• 34:44Speaker 06

  I just mean like, yeah, you know, so like for me, like, there's a lot more suffering that I'm gonna focus on.

• 34:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 06

  If I spend any part of my day dealing with that. I'm glad it made a movie and the drums are in it, in it, and that people liked it, but, um, you know, he could walk away probably a lot easier than, you know, somebody else. And he, actually, if, you know, historically, he had all the tools to, you know, fight back a little more than some of us, so.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:13Speaker 06

  I don't know. But anyway, uh, just as far as that whole method of teaching. I mean, yeah, this, this, of course, like I had like a well-known drummer who's passed away and who was my teacher and he threw a book at me once. But he said, uh, you know, he, he was frustrated with his career. And he quit teaching right after that. He was teaching at Berklee. And he said, you're playing my shit. You're not supposed to play my shit. And then he threw a book at me.

• 35:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 06

  You know.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  That's, that's, I was just thinking, that's gotta be something for all these legends to hear you.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Please, I, I share my name, you share your name.

• 35:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 35:50Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, it's okay because I, I, I saw him and we, you know, had a beautiful time hanging out before, you know, certainly before he passed and he was living in Europe and it was Keith Copeland. And, uh, you know, so it's like, I, I didn't even, I, I loved him and I felt like he loved me and I never, I think my parents were a little more upset about it than me, you know, because I just, I shrugged it off, you know, that was, I think that's been my way. And that's another thing I just want to point out since we're talking about it. Everything that's happened, like anything negative, I've had to shrug it off. For me, I had to just act like it didn't happen and keep moving. And, you know, beating into my brain, that's not gonna stop me. You know what I mean?

• 36:34Speaker 06

  Like, and so then you look back and it's hard, you know, you start thinking, like when I started playing with, um, Esperanza and Jerry Allen, they started talking about, oh, this feels good. Like this is a space where, man, I can let my hair down. I don't have, you know, uh, I'm not, um, what's the word? Uh, you know, there's a, like a protective layer.

• 36:54Speaker 05

  Safe space.

• 36:56Speaker 06

  Well, I'm, I was trying to think of how Esperanza put it and she started talking about an armor that she was able to let go of. And then Jerry was agreeing and I was the only one sitting there saying, hmm, like, really? Oh, okay, cool. Well, you know, whatever works for you. It took me years after that to understand, oh, I, I, I have those issues too, but I just sweep them under the rug so well.

• 37:20Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 37:21Speaker 06

  That I, I don't deal with it because it's just, it's not useful to me.

• 37:24Speaker 05

  I thought you was like the most free individual I ever met.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was about to say, this is very unusual.

• 37:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 06

  What do you mean free? No, I, I.

• 37:32Speaker 00

  Well, I'm just saying so many people plant seeds. And, you know, they plant seeds of doubt in your head and you live with it. And I just love the fact that. That wasn't even like you just ducked it like a boxer.

• 37:44Speaker 05

  But it goes somewhere, right?

• 37:46Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  It goes somewhere. So that's what she's saying. That's why I know, that's why I take back what I said. Cause I'm like, oh, she puts it somewhere. It ain't, yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, I wasn't conscious of it though.

• 37:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  You know, you know what I'm saying? And so that's just a layer that it's the way I see it is it's hard enough to learn how to play music. Any kind of music, but jazz, I mean, it's really fucking hard, right? So who wants that extra burden? Who wants that extra layer of, oh, and I have to deal with this? You know, like somebody hit on, you know, I don't, I didn't get hit on a whole lot, uh, you know, without wanting to. But you know, if a bandleader hit on me in the middle of rehearsal or, you know, I, I would just be like, oh, oh, man, really? Well, you know, fantasies are good. Let's go back to playing, you know, whatever. And I never thought for one minute, I'm thinking of somebody and I'll, I'll say it. It was Stan Gatz.

• 38:41Speaker 06

  And I never thought for a minute that it meant that I would lose the gig. And then when I start talking to these young people, all of that is going through their brain.

• 38:51Speaker 05

  Yes. Yes. All of it's going through their brain and they're not standing for it.

• 38:56Speaker 06

  Well, no, but now, but I'm talking about five, 10 years ago.

• 39:00Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. No, we just had to suck it up. You just suck, you just, yeah, you just.

• 39:02Speaker 06

  But they were wondering, well, what do I do? Like, you know, am I gonna lose the gig or, you know? And they started thinking, I realized, wow, that never crossed my mind. I told him, get out of here. Let's go rehearse. You know, and it never crossed my mind that he would hold it against me.

• 39:19Speaker 05

  So that means technically you've never been disappointed by your heroes in that way?

• 39:24Speaker 06

  Oh, maybe not in that way, you know, not. I, I mean, you know, I'm sorry. I just had a flashback. But even that, you know, like if somebody, you know, you, you know, somebody's over your house, you come out and they're like sitting there naked or some. You know, even that would make me laugh, you know?

• 39:44Speaker 00

  No.

• 39:48Speaker 05

  That would depend on a legend. It could be real sad though, Terry. It could be like, damn, come on, man.

• 39:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, but you know, there's a lot of love. I think that um, black women have have historically taken in uh, consideration, all of these things. And I'm like, as long as I don't feel like, you know, you about to physically harm me, then I'm not really worried about it, you know, but what I'm, what I keep trying to say is, you shouldn't have to be that way. You shouldn't have to go through the extra burden. And that's what I will then take somebody down for. So I had to talk myself off a ledge now all the time, but that's for other people, for some of my students. I'm like, they say, what? And I'm like trying to go to the run of the school to beat somebody down. I'm like, okay, we can't do that.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 40:38Speaker 06

  You know, I gotta like now try to intelligently talk to this person, or.

• 40:44Speaker 05

  Use language.

• 40:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, you know.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  Terry, I always wanted to know, simply because I'm I'm I'm so drenched in hip hop, I have to be a shapeshifter? In other words, any track I hear, my first question I'm asking is, how would DJ Premier program this? Or how would Steve Ferroni drum on this? Or how would Tony Williams play this, or whatever? Um, so oftentimes, you know, I'm shapeshifting, kind of in the in the name of of being a human sampler. Uh, but when you're starting to drum, who is the, who's the drummer who sound that you were most attracted to? Uh, when you first started?

• 41:33Speaker 00

  Based on, you know, you left Arsenio, I think in eighty nine, so uh, based on your symbol work, I always thought that Tony Williams might have been your North Star, but you know, for you, who who were your your three gods of drumming that you had in your mind when you were drumming?

• 41:52Speaker 06

  Well, at the end of the day, it became, well, let me see. When I was eighteen, seventeen, it was Jack Dejeanette and he became my biggest mentor. I purposely stayed away from trying to mimic Tony Williams and Elton Jones to a degree too, because their styles are so individual that if I hear somebody playing like them, it sounds like a caricature of them, more than anybody else, I think, because their styles are so strong.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  So even when you're playing with Herbie or Wayne or a combo, it's the temptation to not go there doesn't hit you at all?

• 42:34Speaker 06

  No, unfortunately, when I played with Herbie, especially in the earlier years, well, see, the thing is, you know, I played in six or seven different bands of Herbys.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  Right, depending on what project it is.

• 42:47Speaker 06

  Exactly, so the first, the first long, you know, term gig I had with him, we were supporting This Is The Drum. And then I had to play these grooves like with, with computers, you know, which I had never done. And then, you know, trio, quartet, and then Gershwin's were also, those were more acoustic. But then, the Future To Future, which, you know, was more, had, you know, some hybrid hip-hop stuff in there as well, but it was all, you know, mostly groove. So when I was playing straight ahead in the beginning, yeah, Tony Williams would creep out because I realized whenever I heard Herbie from all the records, it was mostly Tony,

• 43:30Speaker 06

  playing with him, so that is the sound, you know, that my spirit related to Herbie, which was interesting because he told me that Jack Dejeanette was his favorite drummer. And that's like my guy, yeah, yeah, back then, yeah, and that's my guy.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  So Tony, so Jack Dejeanette was Tony's sort of North Star as far as?

• 43:50Speaker 06

  No, no, no, I'm saying Herbie told me.

• 43:52Speaker 00

  Oh, Herbie would say that?

• 43:53Speaker 06

  That Jack was his favorite drummer.

• 43:55Speaker 00

  Over Tony?

• 43:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's what he told me.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  Wow, okay.

• 44:00Speaker 06

  To play with. This is, you know, after, you know, many years after that classic Miles Davis Quintet. So, he, if you notice, I mean, he hired Jack on, you know, some of his records and, but anyway, uh, so I thought, oh, this, that's my guy. So I'm good. You know, that's great. That's who, uh, that's my North Star. But then, once I started playing, all this Tony snuck in, you know? Which is interesting, just because having heard him with Herbie all those years.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  What is, because of a lot of the Jack stuff that I heard was more like fusion, like his 70s fusion work or whatever? Uh, how, like for me, Tony is so heavy on cymbal work.

• 44:40Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  That you automatically, and his ability to stop time and just, you know, for, for our listeners today that, you know, I, I guess you can say that, sort of the way that Chris Dave's relationship with time where, you know, he, it doesn't exist in his world, but it exists, but it doesn't exist. Tony was sort of, you know, that way straight ahead. But what, what do you think that Jack's trademark was?

• 45:05Speaker 06

  Well, I think, I, I disagree a little bit about Tony in a time existing and not existing because I feel like, uh, you know, Tony's, uh, beat was pretty, it was beautiful. It was so beautiful, um, his time feel.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  Oh, no, he would stay on rhythm, but do all these counter rhythms that?

• 45:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, but that's to me mathematics. You know what I mean? Like the counter rhythms, it's polyrhythms. It's things that, that work within the structure of, of a beat. And so what attracted me to Jack was the opposite of that, you know, the, the, the time being elastic. And, and, and like, I hear him on this all, it's slinky like a snake, you know? It's, um, and his touch, you know, I can tell Jack within a second of hearing him, you know, on any recording, because it's his touch. Any great drummer, you're right, it's the rise cymbal. You know, any great jazz drummer, their, their identity lives in their rise cymbal. Now, some, some people like Tony, like a lot of great drummers, like Tony, like,

• 46:12Speaker 06

  uh, Art Blakey, uh, Max Rush, also part of their identity is, uh, what they've, you

• 46:20Speaker 06

  Develop soloing, so they're licks, they're things that are signature, right? So there are signature licks that you can say that are Art Blakey or Tony Williams or Philly Joe Jones. But with Jack, it's not really signature licks, there's no licks, it's like, it's all more organic. And the same thing, all of my favorite drummers, Roy Haynes, it all begins and ends with Roy Haynes. He's the hippest jazz drummer ever lived.

• 46:42Speaker 05

  I'm so glad you said that. Oh god, my dad would be so glad you said that. I just want to say this real quick, I'm so sorry to me to interrupt y'all, but for some of us, 89 is when you ended Arsenio. It's a whole generation of other folks that go, like for my father who go, "Little Terry, that was Roy Haynes, his protege," and all of that, so it was just, for me, I'm, continue on Terry, I apologize.

• 47:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, it's beautiful, you know, just a sidebar, his son sent me a video last night of his granddaughter, which would be Roy's great-granddaughter, they had been asking, she had been asking for sticks and he finally brought this little kid, she's three, little kid set in sticks, and it was the first time she ever held a pair of sticks, and she was like, and she ended and flipped the sticks and put them under her arm, he was like, "You're the first person I'm sending this to."

• 47:30Speaker 00

  For our listeners that don't know, Roy Haynes is probably the elder statesman, I think, between him, Roy is 97 or 98.

• 47:41Speaker 05

  Still playing.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Still playing like he's 40-something.

• 47:46Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  That's crazy. Like it's nothing, you know, and, you know, and with, and his son Graham and whatever, like, literally.

• 47:57Speaker 05

  Yes. I should mention, he taught my dad too, that's why I'm so important to him too.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  Drumming genius.

• 48:04Speaker 06

  Who's your dad?

• 48:06Speaker 05

  His name is Ron St. Clair, but my dad had a nephew that he taught named Dennis Davis, so we're just a family.

• 48:11Speaker 06

  I know Dennis, I know Dennis, yes.

• 48:13Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 48:14Speaker 06

  Dennis that played with Stevie.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  Dennis, playing by himself, man.

• 48:17Speaker 05

  Playing by himself, man.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. If you're a music fan, I've got a new podcast you have to check out. It's called Before the Moment, a new series hosted by the legendary Nile Rodgers. You know him as the producer, songwriter, guitarist, and co-founder of Chic. But in this series, he's hitting the road to sit down with some of today's most fascinating artists. From hitmakers like Miguel to rising stars like Alex Warren. Nile explores the stories behind the careers, the songs, and the moments that changed everything. Because every artist can point to that turning point, that moment before the breakthrough, before the success, before everything changed. Through candid conversations and personal stories,

• 49:25Speaker 02

  you'll hear what happened before the moment that made them who they are today. Listen to Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series, on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  Behind every chart-topping hit, you know by heart there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening. Some basement, some bedroom. Somebody with headphones on at three in the morning chasing a thing they couldn't even name yet. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original. Already moving, already shaking things up, already looping that one bar, already off-tempo, on purpose, because on purpose was the point. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first. Not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there, living stories worth telling. What's yours?

• 50:20Speaker 00

  Behind every original, live in Levi's.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  Were you part of the M-Bass Circle?

• 50:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was there when Steve named it. Like he said, I came up with this thing, you know, macro-dash-basic array of structural extemporizations.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  Wait a minute.

• 50:38Speaker 06

  I was like, good luck, dude. Let's see if that's going anywhere.

• 50:40Speaker 00

  Wait, I did not know M-Bass was an acronym. What is it for?

• 50:45Speaker 06

  Macro-dash-basic array of structural extemporizations.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Ooh.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  Deep.

• 50:54Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, we have a, we did a record, um, which I think was really the beginning of N-Bass that never came out. Uh, it was for Grammar Vision and, uh, it was Graham. The horn section was Graham, Greg Osby, Steve, and, uh, who am I missing? It was four, oh, Robin Eubanks. And then the rhythm section was Vernon Reed, Jerry Allen, me, and Kevin Harris. Yeah.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  Oh, man, you just opened up a door because I, I had a manager who was one of the top jazz DJs at, uh, Temple, uh, RTI in Philadelphia. And, you know, in his mind, like, N-Bass was the future, which is the reason why, like, a lot of N-Bass, including, like, Cassandra and everybody, like, was on our first few records. Did you, at the time, when you're in this movement, did you feel as though, like, okay, we are the new generation, we're the native tongues, we're gonna, you know, push for it? How mu- how much pushback at the time from, like, jazz traditionalists were you getting?

• 51:59Speaker 06

  Uh, well, you know, when that started, like, I moved shortly thereafter to LA to do the Arsenio Hall show. Uh, actually, I was moving anyway, and then I got the show, and that just made my move have to happen in a week. I was out there looking for apartments. I was staying with Patrice Russian and, um,

• 52:17Speaker 00

  What was the audition process like? You, you just dropped a lot in that one sentence.

• 52:21Speaker 05

  You sure did. He has another former guest of Questlove Supreme.

• 52:24Speaker 06

  Yes, indeed.

• 52:25Speaker 05

  Our girl.

• 52:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, uh, yeah, so I was playing with Wayne Shorter at the time, so, and Diane Reeves was my best friend. She lived in LA. She, I met her that same time when I, Clark Terry, so she was 19 and I was 10. We were both guests with Clark that time when I told you about the Buddy Rich story.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:42Speaker 06

  So, when I went to LA and, uh, you know, rehearsed with Wayne, or we went to Japan, I would just stop in LA and stay for a while and stay with Diane and then, and Patrice. And, uh, Patrice, she was on, um, Joy Rider, you know, with us, so it was around that time. And so the three of them convinced me to move to LA. So I, this was the end of, uh, 88. So I went, uh, right around Thanksgiving to LA and looked for an apartment.

• 53:11Speaker 06

  And then somehow, it was Narda Michael Walden and Patrice, maybe one other person, that recommended me for the Arsenio Hall show. And so I went in and I just played a couple of tunes with them. And, and I got the gig, but they were like, you gotta be back here next week. We start tape, you know, we start next week, the day after New Year's. Uh, so I had a week to go home and pack up, um, in Fort Greene and, and it was to Glendale, California.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 53:36Speaker 06

  But, um, yeah, and I, I, I stayed with Patrice while I was looking, um. So the audition process wasn't very, I don't even know how many drummers they had. They had audition, uh.

• 53:48Speaker 00

  Standard, okay, keep play funk, keep play jazz, keep play, you know.

• 53:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, and you know, Michael Wolf was angry, so it wasn't, it wasn't any heavy funk, you know what I mean? It wasn't any, yeah, but it was a good, a great experience, you know, and I feel like it set me up, you know, more for doing the vibe TV show with very filling games. That's right. You know, more, um, more of, of a band that could play with anybody. So like, we played with James Brown, we played with Aaliyah, we played with, uh, Destiny's Child. We played with, uh, I don't know, Rick James. We played with, you know, just a lot of, it was amazing experience playing with all those people. Whereas the first one, we didn't really play with that many people that came on. But I, you were saying something else, um.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  I, I fell down with the M bass, uh.

• 54:36Speaker 06

  Oh, M bass, yeah. So what happened was, they were moving on and when I li- look back and like, when that record we made, everybody had to bring in a song. And Steve had made this, um, like kind of criteria for the music of it not being straight ahead and having, you know, rhythms or grooves kind of from more modern, cause he was into James Brown. But, you know, more modern grooves, but with, um, harmony and stuff moving like jazz, but not necessarily in the traditional kind of two, five, one way.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 55:10Speaker 06

  And, and things that weren't in that kind of form, like no A A B A forms and that kind of thing.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 55:16Speaker 06

  So what I wrote. Was more pop-ish, so to say. And if you, if you would've listened to it, like, my song was the outlier on the record because I listened to everything he said and I did everything, literally, in these little sections, odd time signatures or whatever. And, but it really pointed to something more commercial, so to say, than their writing. And, um, you know, I know so many was like a pop area music, but it was probably good that the record never came out. But, um, so I didn't feel so connected. I feel like I was there in the beginning, but I wasn't super connected and I was playing with Wayne and I was really just trying to do that gig because I hadn't really played, um, a fusion gig.

• 56:01Speaker 06

  Like, when I auditioned for Wayne, it was fourteen drummers and, you know, I got the gig somehow. And that was my first real, uh, foray into just, you know, playing groove stuff. But I had been listening, of course, to Weather Report and, and all of that. And, you know, coming up, I mean, Earth and Fire was my favorite band. Uh, you had asked earlier if I was listening to all this other music. I mean, I remember the first place I, I was when I heard Go-Go at a party.

• 56:28Speaker 05

  Excuse me? Where'd you hear Go-Go at a party in, in Massachusetts?

• 56:31Speaker 06

  In West Medford, in Medford. Where I said it was a black community, but see, it's not.

• 56:35Speaker 05

  I know, but it's so, Go-Go's so localized. That's why I'm like, it made it up there? Okay.

• 56:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, of course, yeah, it took a while. And then I remember the first time, you know, I was at another, one of those parties, you know, I heard Rapper's Delight, you know, it was my first introduction to hip-hop. I didn't know what was happening before that. Right. But, um, yeah, you know, so like, I was listening to all of that stuff coming up. Um, and, you know, I, I'm just, as a sidebar, uh, I was in Beast Street, so I feel like I was actually part of it.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop, stop. Hold on. Come back.

• 57:08Speaker 06

  You didn't know that?

• 57:09Speaker 00

  No.

• 57:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'll send you a little clip. It was just like a quick cameo, but.

• 57:14Speaker 00

  Wait, when they were doing the ballet thing on stage?

• 57:17Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 57:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, but I was brought in from Medford, Massachusetts by Harry Belafonte to play like this little drum fill.

• 57:27Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, these sentences are so compound that you give. I'm so sorry.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  I know.

• 57:30Speaker 05

  I was fired by Harry Belafonte for the Beat Street cameo.

• 57:35Speaker 06

  Well, because, yeah, because he was the producer of Beat Street. And Diane Reeves was, was playing in his band. So I had made an album that's actually gonna come out forty years later now, uh, with Kenny Barron, Busta Williams, and George Coleman. And I was, I was, uh, sixteen at the time. So we had just done it. So at this point now, I'm seventeen. And, uh, Diane came to Boston with Harry. So I hadn't seen her since this Wichita Festival when I was ten. So we had a big reunion and she, I gave her this tape of my album. It was a green cassette tape. And she gave it to Harry. And then out of the blue, he just called and we thought it was a joke, you know?

• 58:18Speaker 06

  There's a couple of people that called. We thought it was a joke. Benny Goodman called once too. We definitely thought that was a joke.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  And you just hang up on him and like?

• 58:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, but Harry though, yeah, we were like, come on.

• 58:29Speaker 05

  Amir, you are making the wrong movies around the wrong people. I'm like, when does this movie come out?

• 58:35Speaker 00

  I'm literally, I'm literally, okay, I'm watching the scene right now. I'm sorry, I, I had to pull it up on my monitor.

• 58:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I was, I was talking about my Terry Lynn Carrington movie about her life because it's, I've never, never in my whole, there's never been a, never, never.

• 58:53Speaker 06

  No.

• 58:54Speaker 00

  This is crazy.

• 58:55Speaker 06

  Funny, it's, yeah, yeah. So I feel like, you know, like, uh, some weird, in some weird way, that was, um, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? I was kind of predicting, you know, I've always felt connected to all the genres, you know? I've always been a bit of a bridge, you know, with all the genres because, I mean, I'm a jazz head, of course. But I mean, I went through many years when I lived in L.A. Saying, "Don't call me a jazz musician, you know, I'm just a musician." Then, you know, I had to come back, you know? Like, my dad was like, "You can't run away from who you are."

• 59:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 06

  And, uh...

• 59:27Speaker 05

  And also, you stay collaborating with folks, so I'm like, "I know you still got your ear to the streets, 'cause, you know, you still got folks like Rhapsody on records and whatnot, so..."

• 59:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm doing A&R now for, uh, Candid, which is an old label, um, that John Burke and the team, that he's with, uh, Acceleration Music. They're buying labels, they bought, uh, Allegato Records, they bought Candid, they bought a hip-hop label, too. So I'm doing, you know, it's a dream that I always wanted, I always wanted to do. I read Hitman back in the day, and I wanted to do A&R.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:57Speaker 06

  And one day, I was walking, and I said, "Well, that's one, you know..."

• 1:00:00Speaker 00

  You read Hitman and then still wanted to be in the industry?

• 1:00:04Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, that was what I wanted to do.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  That would've been the red light to be like, "Nah, don't, don't come here."

• 1:00:11Speaker 06

  No. I wanted to, you know, I wanted to be Clive Davis, I wanted to be, you know, like... And so, I felt like, you know, there was only two black women, you know, that were doing, were doing that, right? Susanna Pass and, um, Sylvia Rohn. Yeah, so when people ask me about glass ceilings, that's what I say. As a producer, as an A&R person, those are the places I, I felt more of a glass ceiling than, than playing the drums necessarily.

• 1:00:37Speaker 05

  That's just...

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  Oh, getting in the industry.

• 1:00:40Speaker 05

  Like, you ain't got the ears, like, you ain't got the ears?

• 1:00:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, like, like, I mean, or like, I'm in some little jazz box over here that, you know...

• 1:00:50Speaker 05

  'Cause...

• 1:00:50Speaker 06

  I'm, I'm like, all of those people were attorneys, they don't have no ears on me.

• 1:00:56Speaker 05

  So what are you A&R for right now specifically? Like, what do you, what do you...

• 1:00:59Speaker 06

  Well, the, the idea with Candid, and this is all relatively new, but it's to try to find, uh, people that are really merging jazz with hip-hop and, and...

• 1:01:10Speaker 05

  Ooh, that's a fun assignment.

• 1:01:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly, but this is a, it's a catalog label, too. And, and we're not gonna say no to certain cool records. So the first record that I got done happened to be a live record with Wayne Shorter, S. Bronson, and myself.

• 1:01:26Speaker 05

  Oh!

• 1:01:26Speaker 06

  And, um, so that's gonna be coming out, uh, in September, I think.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:01:31Speaker 06

  And, and then I have a new record that will be coming out on it, too. And then I, um, the other person I signed was Morgan Garin, who's been playing in my band, uh, but he's like a programmed dude, it's not necessarily hip-hop, but it's like...

• 1:01:46Speaker 06

  I don't know, it's kind of like if you took Wayne Sworder and had him like today and programming and using, you know, all of the

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:54Speaker 06

  uh, things that are available today, you know, so.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  I, I have so many questions, but since we're just going all over the place. As a professor, coming full circle now, back to Berklee. Do you find yourself in a position, so the, the, the year that I left NYU, I, I did NYU for like four or five years and my last year, I kind of had an oh shit moment when I realized that my students knew more than I did. You know, we were talking about, I think my last class, I, I believe we taught about Thriller. And they had a lot of, uh, synth questions, like synth choice questions that I had to do extra homework on. I realized like, yo, these kids are smart as shit. Like they know more than I do.

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

  As a professor, especially with where music is going in now, I don't know specifically the, the class that you're teaching at Berklee, but you know, there's so many levels of musicianship as far as like gospel chop musicians and, and broken beat musicians. I, I guess now there's lo-fi, kind of that genre of music, whatever. In your mind, not, not do you feel as if you have something to contribute, but do you sometimes feel like a stranger in a strange land with the way that musicianship is approached now? For instance, I have a, I have a member, uh, in my group right now who, we don't know

• 1:03:16Speaker 00

  exactly how to describe what Stro Elliott does, where he plays a drum machine as if he is Tchaikovsky or like a piano player, where he's playing samples and whatnot. So with this whole new generation of musicians there, like what, what is teaching a student at Berklee in 2022 henceforth? When it seems that now is the time when the rules are being just washed away and new rules are coming in.

• 1:03:46Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, that's really interesting because that taps on a few things for me. I try to stay around young musicians. I mean, everybody in my band is younger than me. And people that wrote in a different way than than I do. And I'm talking about the social science band. So if you if you heard that record, I think it definitely pointed to something different than I would have been able to do on my own. You know, because of the the writing and and the players, you know, like Morgan and and, you know, Matt and the ideas of mixing other genres, like, you know, somebody like Matt Stevens mixes more indie rock, Aaron Parks is, you know, like,

• 1:04:30Speaker 06

  leads into classical composers, you know, Morgan's into, you know, more of the kind of new school jazz. And then I had Casa overall, who is not really with us anymore. Kokai is doing it, but Casa, you know, is definitely kind of into more jazz. Love Kokai. Yeah, jazz meets hip hop. So the idea was to for me to recognize, kind of like, you know, Prince did, right? And that's my favorite part about Purple Rain is that Prince was like, finally, like, oh, like, you know, I need to, in order for me to remain relevant, I have to let Wendy and Lisa write, you know. So for me, that was kind of like my reckoning with,

• 1:05:13Speaker 06

  I'm gonna do much better, you know, with this kind of collective. So I feel like I've always tried to keep my ear and my my spirit to what's happening now, even though I can't do it like, you know, like they do. You know, I never had gospel chops as something that, you know, I just never did it. Never went to church, never, you know, played in church, and never developed that kind of technique. And I don't really hear the drums like that. But I can see how, you know, listening to this younger generation, how it has influenced me to some degree, you know. And so as far as A Strange Land,

• 1:05:55Speaker 06

  I don't really feel that. I feel like I'm constantly being fed. You know, and it kind of, in the end, you know, comes out my way and I still feel like I can comment, you know, and on what they're doing.

• 1:06:08Speaker 00

  So you're still a student at Berkeley?

• 1:06:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. I'm always a student, always a student. But you know, what also taps on though is how jazz education has screwed up jazz. Because what I'm dealing with mostly are people that come out of jazz programs. And now the people in the jazz programs are mostly affluent, you know, from certain cities. I don't know, like, it's all over really, but people that had programs in school. And jazz was kind of more street music, you know, I mean, it was from the people and their experience.

• 1:06:45Speaker 00

  It wasn't in academia.

• 1:06:46Speaker 06

  Exactly. So the academia, they started, you know, they were able to codify it in a way then, uh, you know, uh, what's the word? Make money from it.

• 1:06:57Speaker 00

  Monetize it, yeah.

• 1:06:58Speaker 06

  Monetize it, but there was another.

• 1:07:00Speaker 00

  Commodify.

• 1:07:00Speaker 06

  Commodify, yeah, okay. Yeah, and, um, I feel like now to get into a school, you have to be on a certain level and have gone through this system, which is, you know, is still dealing with, you know, it's, yes.

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  It's prohibitive for a lot of people.

• 1:07:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, and it's a racist sexist system, you know, so.

• 1:07:23Speaker 05

  And income-based.

• 1:07:25Speaker 06

  Well, that's what I mean. That's why it's racist.

• 1:07:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

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• 1:08:48Speaker 00

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• 1:09:40Speaker 00

  There's a certain side of musicianship that I'm seeing now with younger people in which they're able to do whatever, fly to the bumblebee, levels of speed and literally just packing everything in the first one minute. Whereas where I tell them to do something, like my dad had a trick where he would make musicians just play a ballad, play something very simple. And man, they will all fall apart one by one. They would just like fall this, like if you asked them to play T for Two or Chopsticks, it was like asking them to play Right to Spring. So as, as a teacher, do you find it that more students are?

• 1:10:24Speaker 00

  Now, in this, we're in an era now where like, your Instagram stories is 15 seconds, like your TikTok is 30 seconds. Like, you gotta have all the impact of an entire performance in 30 seconds. With, you know, and they don't believe that much in space or quietness anymore. Like, have, is, is there such a thing as a drummer who just plays straight ahead and gives what's required? Or are you dealing with like,

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  more gospel chops, people that have to like have bells and whistles and fire eating and everything?

• 1:11:02Speaker 06

  Fire eating, I love it. Time field is the most important thing, period, right? For a drummer, like, if you don't have a time field that feels good, then nothing else really matters, no matter what the genre, you know? And then it needs to be, you know, I'm into playing free these days, you know? I was just kind of where my head is. But there's time in that, you know? It's not, it's not like free means absolutely no time. Uh, and I think the people that play free the best are ones that have good rhythm.

• 1:11:32Speaker 06

  But as far as the students are concerned, uh, I don't teach drums anymore. Uh, I haven't done that in probably like six years or so. Uh, I just have ensembles and right now I'm, I'm the artistic director of an institute. Um, but I do have two ensembles in that institute. And so I'm just dealing with the overall sound of the, of the group more than individuals. Uh, but it's the same thing with all the instruments, what you're saying.

• 1:12:02Speaker 00

  Is that hard to convey now to a generation that feels like, to me, All-Star games are the most boringest games ever in basketball because, you know, gonna try to show off, whereas a Golden State Warriors in Boston, sorry, by the way. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's literally about teammate and you putting in your 20% and him putting in his 20% and doing 100%. Is that harder to convey on, on students now as far as ensemble is concerned?

• 1:12:37Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, sometimes I'm actually asking them to play more because that's the part of me that is like old school and jazz, like, you know, like you gotta, like I'm finding that a lot of them can't play consecutive eighth notes and construct lines that are interesting, you know, they've gone into this, like moved into something else and I think they're using too much space sometimes. Like what you're saying, I would have thought like a little bit back in the day where everybody was just blazing all the time. And yeah, that's tiring. I get tired of listening after, you know, a minute or two. That's why, that's another reason why I don't really listen too much. I prefer to listen to the Gospel

• 1:13:21Speaker 06

  Chops drumming because I'm bored after I, you know, it's just, I get bored, you know, because I'm not a geek, a drum geek, you know, so I don't really care about that. And I think at the end of the day, that's what your job is to make the listener care, right? What is it that, why do we even do this? You know, so if you feel like it's to make them groove, that they care, you know, that's a level of care, right? But I also feel like, you know, kind of coming out of a way short of in the Herbie Hancock book, I think it's about touching the humanity in them, you know, exploring what it is that you share in common. So how do I inspire you? That's my humanity relating to your humanity. And

• 1:14:06Speaker 06

  so that's where my head is. And so sometimes when I'm listening to some of these young musicians, I can't get past their sound, let alone the notes, you know, because there's nothing in their sound yet. There's no pain, there's, you know, I don't hear the joy, you know what I mean? So I try to get them to, you know, go back to the beginning. Like I remember once being on some, I got honored and it was a, I can't remember who it was, but there was a pro ball player, must have been for the Patriots and because it was in a Boston event. And he said, and I'll never forget this because this is how I feel too in music, but he said, you know, he was an all-star in college and then when he got

• 1:14:47Speaker 06

  to the Patriots, they said, now let us show you, you know, how to throw the ball or how to catch the ball. And he had to like go back.

• 1:14:54Speaker 05

  He played it a little bit and then.

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  Burn.

• 1:15:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, go back to the basics. So for me, that's the same with sound. You know, like, why is it Dwayne Shorter can play one note and break your heart?

• 1:15:10Speaker 05

  True.

• 1:15:10Speaker 06

  You know, like, it's about what you're projecting. You know, so the greatest compliments I ever get is when somebody said, damn, somebody else just played that drum set. But then when you played it, like, wow, you know, the sound changed. And that's when I know I'm, I'm, that's right. That's what, because this, the sound is your spirit.

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:15:32Speaker 06

  You know what I mean?

• 1:15:33Speaker 00

  I would say probably, uh, the Mosaic project is one of your most beloved projects. Could you tell me about just the whole concept of, of doing that album and, and gathering these, uh, these women together to, to do this album and, and how it came to fruition?

• 1:15:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, um, I did a gig in, um, Israel. I had a gig in Israel called Esperanza. It was the first time, well, second time we played together. And, um, she was still, like, she had come out of Berklee and started teaching at Berklee. And that's when I met her, her first year teaching. So I called her, Jerry Allen, and a saxophone player from Holland, Tynica Postma. I realized I called three women for a gig just based on the way they played. I didn't realize that it was three women.

• 1:16:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:16:20Speaker 06

  And this was going to be an all-women quartet until after I had, you know, booked them. So it wasn't anything I was trying to do. I just wanted to play with the three of them. And I was like, okay, this is a big deal for me because throughout my whole career, people had asked me, oh, could you do this women's festival? Could you play with these women? And I was kind of like, you know, when I look at somebody like Mary Lou Williams, who didn't want to play with other women, she's like, well, why would I want to play with them when I'm playing with the best? You know?

• 1:16:50Speaker 05

  I was wondering how you felt about this. Go ahead. Yes, okay.

• 1:16:53Speaker 00

  We kind of patronizing, huh?

• 1:16:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:56Speaker 06

  Yeah. And so I shied away from it my entire career. And there would always be somebody like, you know, I played with Ingrid Jensen, uh, or, you know, Renee Rosnes with Wayne, uh, with Bernard Wright, you know, rest in peace.

• 1:17:09Speaker 00

  And rest in peace, yeah.

• 1:17:11Speaker 06

  And there was always a woman here or there, you know, Jerry back with M-Bass and before that actually, but never all together, you know, and I really shied away from it. So I did it and then I said, this is a moment that I really want to celebrate and shine some light on. So I started with just the four of them and then I just kept adding people and it just became like 21 women. And that's really just how it started. And I wasn't really trying to make any kind of political statement other than, oh, there are a lot of amazing women that play and let me just put through this record.

• 1:17:49Speaker 05

  So this is how the sisterhood started then? Because I was gonna ask you, is there a sisterhood in, well, I was gonna say jazz, really, of course jazz, when it comes to musicians, you know, of a sisterhood in that way?

• 1:18:03Speaker 06

  I mean, there is, but there's a lot of women that are playing jazz that still, they think about it, how do I say, not as much like a sisterhood because, you know, we're affected by the patriarchy too, right? So women are invested in it. Yeah, they don't want to play with other women because they feel like it's a step down or something.

• 1:18:23Speaker 05

  But as more greats are coming out of the fold, how does it be, how's it a step down to play with Terry Lynn?

• 1:18:30Speaker 06

  Well, that's the, well, I mean, that's the point that it's only gonna happen, that's why I started an apprenticeship program and mentorship program at New Music USA, because there's a lot of mentorship programs, but apprenticeship means you have to put them on the stage with you.

• 1:18:44Speaker 05

  Okay, good.

• 1:18:45Speaker 06

  And so we got a grant of 1.25 million dollars to do this three-year program and we had 86 applicants this first year and we picked seven. And so like I did pairings and so some of the mentors are Bob McFerran and Wayne Shorten, you know, lots of different people, but some of the apprenticeships are with Chris Potter, Linda Mahano, Esmeralda, Marcus Miller, he took one, Alexis, which is great, she's having a blast playing with him. So I just feel like, I thought, how do we get more men to hire women? Because if they don't really do it on their own because they need, you know, they don't

• 1:19:27Speaker 06

  necessarily know that they need to contribute to this shift, how do we get them? So I said, pay them.

• 1:19:35Speaker 06

  You know.

• 1:19:35Speaker 05

  But once the men start hiring women, then the women will start hiring women.

• 1:19:40Speaker 06

  No, no, it's, no, what I mean is, was, you know, everybody has to be invested in gender equity. Cause it's for the good of everybody.

• 1:19:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:48Speaker 06

  And I just felt like the one way to get people interested is, is have it affect their wallet. If they're getting a free musician and getting, you know, a little money on top of that, it might make it easier. And it's, you know, so far kind of worked, you know, this is our inaugural year. But anyway, I think that this last record though, Waiting Game is the one, it's the only one I can listen to. Let's put it like that. The other ones I can't, I can't really listen to.

• 1:20:18Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:20:19Speaker 06

  Waiting Game I can still listen to. So I think that's for me, my favorite of all the albums I ever made. Cause I don't cringe when I listen.

• 1:20:28Speaker 00

  So you're still like in your head about like, I could've did that better or we could've did a big different take or?

• 1:20:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, or just sometimes like Mosaic Project, the first one, I mean, I liked things on the second one too, but the Mosaic Project, I think the playing is good overall. Um, there's like some sound things, like, you know, some production things that really bugged me. But, um, you know, playing is good overall, but it's a little bit far away from where I am as a musician. There's a little bit of my writing that bothers me, you know, that I'm like, oh man, I could've really developed that idea much better. And I've improved as a writer since then. So that's what, you know, but overall I think, you know, the playing is okay.

• 1:21:15Speaker 05

  Oh, so you're writing, writing these lyrics on Waiting Game? Okay.

• 1:21:18Speaker 00

  Well, you've been also singing on all of your records. That's, you've sung on, since your first album, you've sung.

• 1:21:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, except this last one I didn't, you know, but um, on wedding game I didn't, but I wrote all the lyrics. Okay. But um, yeah, I tried to sing a little bit.

• 1:21:35Speaker 00

  Man, you, you got to, I guess bucket list check a project. Um, before she died, um, maybe like six months before Amy Winehouse died, uh, she was stalking me daily, telling me that her and I were gonna redo Money Jungle. And

• 1:21:57Speaker 06

  Money Jungle?

• 1:21:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh, the, uh, the Money, Money Jungle album from, uh, Duke Ellington and Max Wooten and Charles Mingus, the, the famous trio record.

• 1:22:07Speaker 06

  That's what I, I did that record.

• 1:22:09Speaker 00

  I know, and you wound up pulling it off. So we, we were planning, me, her, and Mos Def and a few other musicians were gonna cover the entire album.

• 1:22:18Speaker 06

  Oh my God.

• 1:22:19Speaker 00

  Right, and she passed away and, ah, man, I, I was just heartbroken and then a year and a half, or for the, for the 50th anniversary, you actually, what made you wanna cover that entire album? Cause when I seen it, I was like, yo, what the hell? Like, it came out. But I wasn't even mad at it, but what, what made you wanna cover that album?

• 1:22:40Speaker 06

  I, you know, people ask me that all the time and I don't know, it's just, it haunted me. I don't know what made me choose it other than it just kinda haunted me and, um, I started reading all these Duke Ellington biography books and, um, and I tried, was transcribing, you know, the piano and I realized, these are all mostly blues based songs. Probably the easiest stuff that Duke Ellington wrote and I knew that, um, it was as far as I could go, you know, like with transcribing Duke Ellington, a trio record, you know, and, um,

• 1:23:13Speaker 00

  That's the easiest.

• 1:23:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, and, and this, and it wasn't complex, you know, in general, so, uh, I kept flipping like, you know, some of the songs to the point, they didn't sound like it. So even, you know, Christian said when he came to the session, he said, you know, you really could have just called most of these songs something else, you know,

• 1:23:33Speaker 00

  Right, right, and then claimed it as your own.

• 1:23:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:23:38Speaker 06

  But, um, you know, I, I just, I, I wanted to make sure that, uh, I wasn't bastardizing, you know, Duke Ellington's music.

• 1:23:46Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:23:46Speaker 06

  And, um, I read enough interviews, like, he said jazz, we stopped using that, that word in nineteen forty-seven. He said jazz, that just means freedom of expression. And so when I realized, uh, that's how he felt, then I felt okay, you know, about changing his music to that degree.

• 1:24:04Speaker 00

  Okay. And at this phase of your career, um, and you pretty much have done everything, you've, you've done scores, you've taught, televised, you've done everything, um, is there something that you have yet to embark on that you wish to do for this phase of your career right now?

• 1:24:27Speaker 06

  Oh, man, I'm just getting started. I mean, I'm doing, I'm doing so much now that I'm a little pissed that some of these opportunities didn't come before I'm, you know, I'm a little tired, I'm fifty-six.

• 1:24:41Speaker 05

  No, you ain't, that's a lie.

• 1:24:42Speaker 06

  I'll be fifty-seven in two months.

• 1:24:44Speaker 05

  You look like somebody's baby.

• 1:24:46Speaker 06

  Uh, so I'm, I'm a little tired, you know, and I wish, uh, that I had some of these opportunities earlier, like, right now, I can tell you a couple of things. Really? Right? Really?

• 1:25:02Speaker 00

  Who does this in fifties? Like, I, I've been waiting for this at twenty. I think this is the time you're ready. At least forty-one, at least thirty-nine.

• 1:25:09Speaker 05

  Swante, say that again, Swante, say it again.

• 1:25:11Speaker 00

  Cause you're ready for it now. If you would've got it in your twenties, you would've fucked it up.

• 1:25:14Speaker 05

  Hello, well, not Terry, but maybe Amir. Yeah.

• 1:25:18Speaker 00

  Everybody would've, everybody fucks up.

• 1:25:19Speaker 05

  He started so early, so I don't know.

• 1:25:21Speaker 06

  No, but I hear you, uh, I hear you, I, I, I feel you because I feel the same way. And honestly, I, I hear what you're saying, we're wiser and maybe we're doing it better or different, but I feel like I'm the same person, really, like, I, you know, twenty years ago, I would've been going on thirty-seven. Even fifteen years ago, I would've had more energy. And I feel like I knew most of the things that I know now, I just have a little more confidence now because I'm older, but if I had gotten opportunities, because the way I see it is, there's a lot of, and I say this when I talk to young women that feel like... Oh, we, we, we're not ready to be in the, if they're at North Texas or something, they say, we're not ready to be in the

• 1:26:05Speaker 06

  one o'clock band. I don't want to get the opportunity to play in the one o'clock band when I'm really two o'clock band material, you know? And I'm like, wait a minute, there's a lot of marginal white men that have had these opportunities. You know, like that weren't ready. And why do we have to be like three times?

• 1:26:23Speaker 05

  Oh, we have to be super dope. No, that's just the program that way, right? Like?

• 1:26:27Speaker 06

  Right. So that's what I resent. I resent not having some opportunities when I was in my thirties and forties, when I really had the energy. But now I'm, you know, I'm burning a candle. I'm, um, I've been writing, you know, projects, writing words, you know, like I'm writing a children's book. I'm, I'm doing some uh, film for an exhibition.

• 1:26:49Speaker 05

  Has anybody approached you about a, something about your life? Because there is no one ever about you. There's nobody like you in the world. Like this is.

• 1:26:58Speaker 06

  No, nobody's, nobody's approached me yet about that.

• 1:27:02Speaker 00

  No memoir?

• 1:27:03Speaker 06

  No, I'm just trying to get my dad, uh, he's gonna like start, cause he has a better memory than me and he's eighty-four.

• 1:27:11Speaker 00

  Interview your dad right now.

• 1:27:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's what I'm doing.

• 1:27:14Speaker 00

  I'm currently in, yeah, I'm starting, I'm gonna interview my mom. Like, just, I think generally, like, everyone should just interview their elders and get all the stories out, so that way that they're, they're preserved.

• 1:27:29Speaker 06

  You know, I also want to say to you too, uh, I use, uh, I tried to, uh, you might not hear the inspiration, but on, um, Break You Off, you know that end drum thing?

• 1:27:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:27:39Speaker 06

  Um, Break You Off. So like I have an end drum thing on, on a tune of mine on the second mosaic, uh, uh, it's a Trish Russian song, When I Found You.

• 1:27:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:27:49Speaker 06

  So that was like your inspiration from the end of Break You Off is what, what made me write that section at the end. But it's in fifteen, but I think it's fifteen. But if you check it out, I don't know, you know, I said once to Wayne Shorter, I wrote this, you knew, you were my inspiration. He was like, oh, yeah?

• 1:28:09Speaker 00

  Wow, I'm.

• 1:28:10Speaker 06

  Like, he was like, oh.

• 1:28:11Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 1:28:12Speaker 05

  We, we should have asked when we ever see y'all on a stage together or on, on, and we never, we, damn, I should have asked that question cause y'all never been on a stage together.

• 1:28:20Speaker 06

  Never too late.

• 1:28:22Speaker 00

  Now, now, now's the time before.

• 1:28:24Speaker 05

  I'm gonna tell Christian, I'm gonna tell Christian, make it happen.

• 1:28:28Speaker 00

  There you go. This is long overdue. I thank you so much for coming on the show. You gotta come back cuz I've skipped so many, so many questions I had about your career that I've skipped. No, let's do a part two cuz I want to hear about Tia Fuller, Lester Bowie, Diana Krav.

• 1:28:45Speaker 06

  Oh, man. Lester Bowie, yeah.

• 1:28:48Speaker 00

  This will turn into a Jimmy Jam episode, I assure you. Like, Terry is actually like a four hour episode on the reel, so.

• 1:28:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:28:56Speaker 00

  But I have to go get tested. I'm still at my day job, sneaking on my lunch break.

• 1:29:01Speaker 05

  Thank you for existing, Terry. Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:29:05Speaker 00

  No, that's real. Like, you, you, you know, I saw you drumming mad early and, and, you know, you were, you were the first kid that I saw doing what I wanted to do for a living. That was, that was really inspirational to see and I think.

• 1:29:20Speaker 06

  That's pretty wild. I, I never would have imagined that and, um, really, I, that's, makes me feel really good.

• 1:29:28Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 1:29:29Speaker 05

  He wasn't alone.

• 1:29:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, on behalf of Laia, Sugar Steve, unpaid bill and Fonticolo, this is Questlove and we will see you on the next go around on the next episode of Questlove Supreme. We'll see y'all. Peace.

• 1:29:50Speaker 00

  Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

• 1:29:57Speaker 00

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