Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hi, this is Sugar Steve from Quest Love Supreme. This March, we're celebrating women's history at QLs, something that we've done for years. Back in March of twenty twenty two, we spoke to Terry 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 Berkeley 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 enjoyed.
Ladies and gentlemen, another episode of Quest Loves Supreme. I'm your host Quests Love. We got Team Supreme in the hit House Fontigolo. 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. I normally recording my living room, but my.
Son was going to school out uhstairs, so I just bring it upstairs to the studio.
And do it here.
Wait, virtual school is still going on or is it optional them as well?
Yeah, it's option.
We did it.
Yeah, he'll be going back to classroom for the junior year, but for this.
Year it was just 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? I'm where you are?
In the sixty seven degrees at thirty rock.
We're freezing in thirty rock right now.
And yeah, keep that covid out.
It's cold. I know. Yeah, I freeze the COVID out definitely. Uh. Where are you at with black part behind you?
Lamert all day?
That's where I'm Yoh yeah, I forgot to tell you was here.
I took my first visit to Lahmurt Park.
You know why I can't stand.
I only had only had like thirty five minutes to run the Juneteenth.
He was at the June teen festival.
I think I was in a legit episode of Insecure. Yo.
Somebody told me they saw black thought I thought they was lying.
It was awesome. Yeah. I went to uh juneteen for half a second. Then I went to.
Uh the Body Rule party like in another side of l a like Saturday.
Man, it was.
It was one of the nicest, blackest experiences I've ever had in Los Angeles.
People don't know about that. I'm glad you said that.
I forgot. Yeah, you're you're a Lamert Parker. Did you enjoy it?
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 then but it came through nicely.
Damn ice cream.
You know, Bill, you know Billy Higgins had the World stage there, so you probably if this is kind of a Lamert Park yeah, then you never experienced that. But that was really dope back in the day. I'm learning.
I'm learning, 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 student team. Oh god, yeah.
Yes, yes, did you did it?
You did well?
There's nothing exclusive about one in the spread the June teaenth love a Round 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 I could say I'm checking a lot.
Of my musical heroes, bringing them on the show and neuro and 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 was like on PPS, like Rebop or something like that. I forget what it was, but it's definitely one of those like local Boston shows or whatever.
And to see a young kid on a drum set definitely made 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 twelve, thirteen or whatever. But she's literally done it all.
Grammy's college professor, two time late night band leader, 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 if you if you have.
If you collaborate with those two, but I'm a bad Buddhist.
Yeah, that's Ron's Spalding the whole mosaic project with you know, Diana Crawl and and and the likes al Ji Rose, Dan Gets Clark, Terry Wood he Shaw.
I can go on and on and on. This has been a long time coming.
Thank you for your patience, because this is one of these episodes where, you know, because of the courses and the 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 Quest of Supreme Terry Lynn Carrington.
Thank you, Yes, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
How are you today?
I'm great. This is my pleasure talking to you. I'm a big fan and I love everything that you do. So the aberration is mutual.
We've never had an in depth, heart to heart like conversation. So whenever I hear through other people like oh you know, Terrrisis, what's up or whatever, you know it. Occasionally you've come by, like I've seen you play a few gigs or whatever, and I'm still mind blowing. Like there's there's always 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 concern is concerned or whatever, Like it's all one thing.
It's all black music, you know, Like I mean, it's all comes from the blues. So there was something something would be wrong with me if I didn't appreciate what you did. You know, that would be like if any you know, if I had a jazz friend, you know, didn't appreciate you, I would be looking at them sideways.
Well, I thank you for that. I appreciate.
Where are you talking to this right now from you have a very interesting background. It looks like a mall in a prison. At the same time, I have.
A few backgrounds. I'm at home, but that's just my Berkeley background. Here's another Berkeley background. Yes, here's an animated one with I don't know who's that, Chicak Yoh's red and Alice Coltrane. Just when I just want to see Obama drop the mic when I'm missing my grandmother. Okay, there's our slogan. 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.
Yeah, I know, I know, like they went above and beyond the call of duty to ask every wow jazz Luminaria for their for their advice.
Yeah, it was fun doing that, was doing some meetings. The first one Herbie was that 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 right, you know what I mean, because everybody gets scared. So yeah, wow, here's my biggest mentor. Yeah. So anyway, we.
Just had him on the show shorter.
Oh yeah cool.
I'm going to say I was shocked at the amount of feedback we got for that particular episode, like a lot of heavy jazz heads hit us because kind of thank you for asking questions that we nor like aren't normally asked, you know, and other Yeah.
Just letting him talk, That's what we did.
We let him talk exactly.
That's the right thing.
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?
Wow, you know, they happened so long ago that it's kind of like a movie that I'm a part of that I watched and it feels real because I watched it. But was I really there? You know what I mean? Like I played tambourine when I was five years old on stage with Ross and Roland Kirk, and that was probably the first time I was on stage.
How many saxophones did he play?
Always at least three until he had a stroke, and then I'll see him after that, and then he played with one hand, one of the saxophone, but he might have even worked too with the one hand, right, No, any.
Of that's surreal to you. I mean, I'm with the movie.
Those kids that I see, especially kids that are I guess you could say progeny of like other I know that your father and your grandfather were musicians as well, so oftentimes 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 anything strike you odd about this?
You know this this guy with dread or I don't know if he had dread locks back then, but playing three saxophones at the same time, Like, nothing seemed odd about that to you.
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, I was affl after that.
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 evan it was.
But where did you grow up? Where were you born?
In Medford, Massachusetts?
How far is that from Boston to anyone outside of New England, like Massachusetts, just like Boston, and then a bunch of suburbs areas.
Where New Addition is from.
Yeah, Roxburgh.
Whoa, Oh damn, you grew up in Roxburgh.
Oh hell, no, okay, you go to Roxburgh. But my dad would remind me, you know, you're from West Medford, but our area of town, West Medford was the most heavily settled black area outside of Boston. So like, for instance, in my high school's four thousand people in high school, close to four thousand, and at a time when I was in high school, there were three hundred and sixty five black kids, which is not quite even ten percent.
But when we had lunch, you know, I'm sitting with two hundred black kids, So it felt like it was, you know, it was a black environment.
You know, for our circle, it 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 Confederate you know, just based on what we've learned about it. But like in your childhood, was it like that at all?
Or I mean I came like right after the busing situation, and there was like a bit of a riot at my high school about you know, surrounded by some kind of race or about some kind of racial incident. But I haven't 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 eleven, and I was going weekly.
I got to say, you went to Berkeley while still in in junior high school?
Correct, So I.
Was elementary when I started, but that I went once a week. So it wasn't like that big deal. You know, I went after school once a week and took private lessons and ensemble deal special. But what I mean is it wasn't like stressful.
Berkeley reject that's a big deal.
Well that's their loss, right.
Damn right. I'm not bitter at all.
But what I'm gonna say though, is, 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 these things. And everybody hates the Celtics and all that, but you know, nobody ever talks about how we had the first black coach and one of the first black players. Hmm.
I never thought that about the Celtics for real.
Yeah. Yeah. 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 like where I grew up, I had heavily populated black areas, and it was very you know, rich in culture.
All right, So if ever the Patriots or the Celtics went again, I'll add you to my new edition file. Like, Okay, well, at least you seven are happy.
So universal health care? Mayor Massachusetts did that first too? Remember free health care?
Yeah?
Yep.
I mean, you know, if you're from a place, there's got to be some love, you know, Like I used to. I used to hate to go to Philadelphia, but you know, I got happier as I went, you know, so as I learn more about the city. Really, you know, I used to not like Chicago, you know whatever. I'm like, you have these experiences, and it's just as you grow you have the other experiences that can make a place. I have some nostalgia at the very least you.
Didn't like traveling in general or.
Just 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 no block everybody out. I know, because I'm not dealing with Oh, I got to fix this in my house. You know, I come home and I get stressed. I'm like, oh my god, I got that paint the house, I need a new roof, you know, all those things start kicking in.
But when I'm away, I can just I can just focus on whatever it is I'm doing.
Can I ask a question, because I just want to 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, because I mean you said Berkeley when you were eleven.
So I'm like, did anything.
Else ever get into the household, er into your ears outside of the lot?
Okay, 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 consume more rhythm and blues, which at the time we
were talking about the early seventies. 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 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 Coletrain and Miles Davis. So I was listening to lots of Oregon. You know lots of blues Jack McDuff, Jimy McGriff, and you know some rhythm and blues of course, James Brown,
Ray Charles Raytha Franklin. And those are the records, you know, a lot of the records that I remember, you know, as a kid.
Can you tell me the first out that you purchased with your own money? Not just that around the house, like oh, let me see what dad's James Brown's altmore into but like, yeah.
You know, like I don't know if I purchased it, but I think I must have asked my parents to get 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 it was green too, one of those kids, uh phonograph players that had a little speaker built in.
Right post preschool or whatever, Fisher Price record players. Yeah, I feel like I know what this record or what was the record?
Oh no, it was the Fifth Dimension. It was. I was obsessed with Aquarius. H yeah, for some reason, the age of the Aquarius, Like are you one? No no, no, I'm a leo. Okay, I forget it for that being the record.
No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just saying, no, it's for being a leo.
Get extra points if you're in a query for drumming.
Though, you know, I know that there's a sect of people whose opinions are like, you know, at least for ginger pairing, Like there are instruments that it probably deemed that men should use only as far as masculine or feminine whatever, like the 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, Yeah.
I don't you know, I don't know if anybody really ever discouraged me. And I was, you know, I was confident at a young age. So like, I think what tells us 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 Nice. 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 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 going to stop me?
Oh?
And then he said he kind of took a step back, and then he said, you want to come play with my band? Oh? You see what I mean?
Flax flax?
No, but it well, it wasn't that it was beautiful flax. Well yeah, because I think it's how you're raised and I was raised that this is my music.
Where did that confidence come from? Terry?
Like, do you remember, like did your parents something say to you, like the impetus of that, Like, I think.
It's who you are. And that's why I do so much gender equity work now because every woman shouldn't have to be like me. I would go ahead to head with any man, you know what I mean. And I'm not intimidated by anyone. 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 the groove, I'd be like, oh man, he's sitting next to me.
You're talking about sugar Steve and his engineering skills.
What I'm just saying, 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, 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 do you mean just later for them? You know, like something discourage you, that should give you more impetus to you know, And then I realized, you know, they have a nervous breakdowns and shit, you know, like so I had to look at it differently.
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.
And they don't need to. That's the whole thing. We're all different. You know, we don't have to be I was nothing around nothing but men playing, you know, for a long time, and so I ended up kind of acting like them, you know, and not be you know, having a problem being around man all the time. So I think that, you know, 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.
I don't think I've ever went public on record with In high school, I once had a masterclass kind of 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 it. Like especially, there's a there's a generation of cats who were sort of in the game in the fifties and the sixties and the seventies, who you know, don't mince words at all. They don't suffer any fools. They're very blatant and honest or whatever. And this guy just tore me up, man like everything. I didn't even get on the set, and he just looked at the
loud shirt I was wearing, look at my hair. It's like, 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 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 like even in high school, like doing sessions and what I you know, I had the opposite reaction.
I actually that kind of like just got in my.
Head and you know, maybe like a year later, that's when I decided, Okay, I'm gonna go to 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 I'm glad you can buy him, right.
I love to say, where was you?
No?
No this this?
You know, this guy's a legacy god in the world of jazz right now, you know, no longer with us, but.
You don't want to you don't want to name his name.
You know, hey, dogs Marcellus, I'll just let it out.
Well, I just mean, you know, he was, you know, very kind to me. Actually he coached us once.
But I feel like you're a disarming person.
I feel like at the age of ten, you were very disarming with anyone that you met, you know, that would encourage you.
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 he shouldn't have to be that, and people should recognize what they're doing. And there are a lot of older musicians that basically bought into this, you know, patriarchy and
brought brought into the hyper masculinity. And what I'm finding is there's a lot of young musicians 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 some people get it twisted and think that our institute is for women musicians or non binary musicians. It's a space that they can come and make mistakes and learn
the music without having their guard up. But we have about fifty percent young men in our institute as well, because they're rejecting the hyper masculinity 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 for it to live up to its full potential.
So let me ask you, as a professor, then this is about the patriarchy, because how do you since it was an art form built on that, doesn't it come to a certain point where you're at an impact ask and explaining and you know, because I feel like we're in this point too of sometimes either that's what it was and we're trying to change it, or how do we make that still legendary even though that was a problem, Like how do we keep that?
You know, the patriarchy was patriarchy was never good. It wasn't good for anybody, right It's white, white male patriarchy to be specific. But you know, I think that the oppressed learned 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 black men to uh, you know, really feel freedom, right black men exactly, you know, because I mean, well you go back, you know, I've talked to Angela Davis about this and different people, because when slavery ended, you know, black people
couldn't travel, right, they you couldn't go anywhere. 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 go to another town and you know, whether you're playing on the street or in a juke joint or
wherever you could bring your guitar and you could. But it wasn't safe still for women to do that, okay, okay, okay, And these places were not places respectable women should women should be in.
But they were there enjoying the music though.
They Yeah, but not all women, you know, brothels and the music was in these places. 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, the discover that they could actually do this. 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 in the church.
Right.
So then when women started traveling and getting into you know, music and the blues, a lot of it was as singers, right, as vocalist. Then you have like you know, Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith and you know, some of the first blues women my Rainy, but they became also like sexualized, and they had you know, they were entertainers. You know, it wasn't necessarily as considered serious work. Musicians 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 those blues singers, the women, they sold more records, you know, 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.
What blows my mind is that when they came back from the war, it seemed like the 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, I was ignorant to the story of Liberia and I just kind of found out about that
the return. Yeah. Yeah. And like when I saw some footage of all 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 we're in music. You know, it's like you're oppressed. You just like that, you take that nature, yeah, exactly, without even knowing it's wrong sometimes.
So do you feel like the age.
Of the abusive, like and where we are now, like hip hop is is changing where you know, there's a sort of like a slow seed change 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 will assume that if it's still a thing in the fifties and sixties, twenty fifties, twenty sixty, that we'll see a total turnaround. But like kind of the the age of the abusive actor and Whiplash.
Oh whipla J K.
Simmons, How abusive he was?
Whiplash? When you see Matt it was? Was that to you? Was it triggering?
Yeah? I didn't see Whiplash, you know what.
Everyone when Whiplash came out, Literally everyone asked me about it.
People one about the drummer too, right, the one that was lost his hearing.
I didn't see that was the one with your boy.
Uh about to say Freddie Mercury.
Uh, yeah, but I saw that.
The sound of metal, that's the name of that movie, is amazing. That is great.
Yeah. I have so many thoughts, you know, about that, But the first one that just came to my mind is, damn, how do I say this politically correct? I just mean, like, you know, I'm not so attracted to uh, you know, white dude suffering from some drum lessons. It just feels a little like.
This goddamn from the Book of.
Trauma by trauma.
I just mean, like, yeah, you know, so like for me, like there's a lot more suffering that I'm gonna focus on if I spend any part of my days dealing with that. I'm glad he made a movie and the drums are in it and that people liked it. But you know, he could walk away probably a lot easier than you know, somebody else. And he actually, if you know, historically, he has all the tools to you know, fight back
a little more than some of us. So 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, you know, he was frustrated with his career and he quit teaching right after that. He was teaching at Berkeley, and he said, you're playing my ship. You're not supposed to play my ship.
And then he that yeah, you know, because I was just thinking that's got to be something for all these.
Yeah, I mean it's okay because I saw him, and we you know, I had a beautiful time hanging out before, you know, shortly before he passed, and he was living in Europe and it was Keith Copeland. Uh, you know, so it's like I didn't even 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 wanted 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, to keep moving and you know, beating in my brain double that's not
gonna stop me, you know what I mean. Like, and so then you look back and it's hard, you know, you start thinking, like when I started playing with 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, I'm not what's the word. Uh, you know, there's a like a
protective layer face armor. Well, I was trying to think of how Es Browns will put it and she just started talking about an armor that she was able to let go of, and then Jerry was agreeing, and I was only once sit there saying hmmm, like really, oh okay, cool, Well, whatever works for you. It took me years after that to understand, oh, I have those issues too, but I just sweep him under the rug so well that I don't deal with it because it's just it's not useful to me.
I thought you were like the most free individual I ever met.
Yeah.
I was about to say, this is very unusual. Yeah, what do you mean.
No, 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 duct it like a boxer.
But it goes somewhere, exactly, it goes somewhere. And that's what she's saying. That's why I know.
That's why I take back what I said, because I'm like, oh, she puts it somewhere. It ain't.
Yeah.
Well, I mean I wasn't conscious of it though, because you know, you know what I'm saying, and so that's just a layer. That is the way I see it. It's just 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 don't get hit on a whole lot,
you know, without wanting to. But you know, if a band leader hit on me in the middle of a rehearsal or you know, I would just be like, 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 say it, it was Stan Getz. 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.
Yes, yes, all of us going through their brain. And they're not standing for it.
Well no, but now, but I'm talking about five ten years ago.
You know, we just had to suck it out. You just suck you just yeah, you just.
They were wondering, well what do I do? Like, you know, am I going to lose the gig or you know how, and they start thinking. I realized, Wow, that never crossed my mind. I told him, you know how to let's go with rehearse, you know, and it never crossed my mind that he would hold it against me.
So that means technically, you've never been disappointed by your heroes in that way.
Oh maybe not in that way, you know, not. 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 something, you know, even that would make me laugh, you know.
I know.
It depends on the legend. It could be real sad though Terry. It could be like, damn, come on man.
Yeah, but you know, there's a lot of love, and I think that black women have historically taken in consideration all these things. And I'm like, as long as I don't feel like, you know, you're 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. She shouldn't have to go through the extra burden, and that's what I will then take somebody down for. So I have 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 runt of the school and beat somebody down. I'm like, Okay, we can't do that, right, you know, I got to, like, now try to intelligently talk to this person or use language.
Yeah, you know, Terry, I always wanted to know simply because I'm I'm I'm so drenched in hip hop.
I have to be a shape shifter.
In other words, any track I hear, my first question I'm asking is how would DJ Premier program this, or how would see FERRONI drum on this?
Or how would Tony Williams play this or whatever?
So oftentimes, you know, I'm shape shifting kind of in the name of being a human sampler. But when you're starting to drum, who is the who's the drummer? Who sound that you were most attracted to when you first started based on you know, you left Arcinio a thing in eighty nine, so based on your simple work, always thought that Tony Williams might have been in your north Star. But you know, for you, who were your three gods of drumming that you had in your mind when you were drumming.
Well, at the end of the day, it became well, let me see, when I was eighteen seventeen, it was Jack de Jeannette, and he became my biggest mentor. I purposely stayed away from trying to mimic Tony Williams and Elsen 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.
So even when you're playing with Herbie or Wayne or Combo, it's the temptation to not.
Go there doesn't.
Hit you at all, no, it 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 Herbie's, so you know he's supporting, yeah, exactly. So it was 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 uh, with computers, you know, which I had never done.
Uh.
And then uh, you know, Trio Quartet and then Gersha was well just those were more acoustic. But then the The Future of the Future, which you know, was more It had you know, some hybrid hip hop stuff in there as well, but it was all, you know, mostly grooves. 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
playing with him. So that is the sound, you know, my spirit related to Hervey, which was interesting because he told me that Jack Deson it was his favorite drummer and that's like my guy, yeah yeah, back then, yeah, and that's my guys.
So Tony.
So Jackie's net was Tony's sort of north starts as far as.
No, no, no, I'm saying, Herbie told me. Herbie said that that Jack was his favorite drama overt. Yeah, that's what he told me. Wow, okay to play with this is you know, after you know, many years after that plastic Miles David Quintest so he if you notice, I mean he hired jack On. You know, some of his records. But anyway, so I thought, oh, this that's my guy. So I'm good. You know, that's great, that's who 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.
What is because a lot of the Jack stuff that I heard was more like fusing, like his seventies fusion work or whatever. How like for me, Tony is so heavy on symbol work that you automatically and his ability to stop time and just you know, for listeners today that you know, I guess you can say that sort of the way that Chris Dave's relationship with time, where you know, 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 do you think that Jack's trademark.
Was, Well, I think I disagree a little bit about Tony in the time existing and not existing because I feel like, you know, Tony's beat was pretty, it was beautiful. It was so beautiful his time feel.
Oh no, he would say on rhythm, but do all these counter rhythms that, yeah, but.
That's to me mathematics, you know what I mean, Like the counter rhythms, it's polyrhythms. There's things that work within the structure of a beat. And so what attracted me to Jack was the opposite of that, you know, of the time being elastic and like hear him on this all it's slinky like a snake. You know, it's in 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 symbol. You know, any great jazz drummer, their their identity lives in their rise symbol. Now, some people like Tony, like a lot of great drummers like Tony, like Art Blakey, Max Rusch. Also part of their identity is what they've you know, developed soloing, so their their licks. There are things that are signature, right, So there are signature licks that you can say that 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 my favorite drummers, Roy Haynes, it all begins and ends with Roy Haynes. He's the hippos. Jaz I was. I was so glad.
She said that, oh God, my dad would be so glad. She said that, I just want to say this real quick. I'm sorry, I mean to interrupt y'all, but for some of us, eighty nine is when you ended our Senio. It's a whole generation of other folks that go from my father who go little Terry that was Rory Haynes's protag and all that. So it was just for me, I'm continue on Terry Ipoplois.
Yeah, no, it's beautiful, you know, just a sidebar. His son sent me a video last night of his granddaughter daughter, which would be Roy's great granddaughter. They had been asking if she had been asking for sticks, and he finally about this little kid. She's three little kids set and sticks and it was the first time you ever held a pair of sticks. And she was like and she ended and flipped the sticks and put him under her arm. He was like, you're the first person I'm sending.
This to for our listeners that don't know. Roy Haynes is probably the the elder statesman I think between him.
Roy's ninety seven or ninety eight, still playing, still playing like forty something. Yes, that's crazy, like it's nothing you know, and.
You know and and with and his son Graham and and whatever like literally.
Yes, just mentioned he taught my dad too. That's why he's so important to him to geniuses.
Who's your dad?
His name is Ron Saint Clair. But my dad had a nephew that he taught, named Dennis Davis.
So we're just a fan. Oh yes, yeah, dunnis to play with Stevie.
Yes self slaying me. Were you part of the in bass circle?
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 extis. I was like, good luck, let's see if that's going anyway.
I did I know BASE was an acronym.
What is it for macro ah Basic array of structural extemporizations.
Deep?
But yeah, we have a We did a record which I think was really the beginning of M BASE that never came out. It was for Gramma Vision. It was Graham, the horn section was Graham, greg osby Steve and h Whoman missed and it was four Robin you Banks and then the rhythm section was Vernon Reed, Jerry Allen, Me and Kevin Harris. Yeah.
Oh man, you just opened up a door because I had a manager who was one of the top jazz DJs at Temple RTI in Philadelphia, and you know, in his mind, like m base was the future, which is the reason why like a lot of MBASE, including like Cassandra and everybody like was on our first view 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 forward. How much pushback at the time from like jazz traditionalists were you getting?
H Well, you know when that started, Like I moved shortly thereafter to La to do the Arsenial Hall. So 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 Patris Russian And.
What was the aficial process, Like, you just dropped a lot in that one sentence.
You sure did. He has another former guest of Quest left.
Spree right, Yes, yeah, yeah, So I was playing with Wayne Shorter at the time. So, and Diane Reeves was my best friend. She lived in LA. I met her at that same time when I Clarke Terry. So she was nineteen and I was ten. We were both guessed with Clark that time when I told you about the
Buddy Rich store. So when I went to LA and you know, with hers, with Wayne we went to Japan, I would just stop in LA and stay for a while and stay with Diane and then in Patrise and Patrise she was on 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 this was the end of eighty eight. So I went right
around Thanksgiving to LA and looked for an apartment. And then somehow it was Nary, Michael Walden and Patrise 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 I got the gig. But they were like, you got to be back here next week we start taping, you know, we start next week the day after New Year's Uh. So I had a week to go home and pack up in Fort Green and it was to Glendale, California. But yeah, I
stayed with Patrise while I was looking. So the audition process wasn't very I don't even know how many drummers they had they had audition.
Uh Sanders, okay, keep play funk, play jazz.
Yeah, and you know, Michael Wolf was there. It wasn't it wasn't any heavy funk, you know what I mean. It wasn't any Yeah, but it was a good, 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, and that was you know, more more
of of a band that could play with anybody. So like we played with James Brown, we played with Aliyah, we played with Destiny's Child, we played with uh, I don't know, Rick, James, we played with you know, just a lot of It was an amazing experience playing with all those people, whereas the first one we didn't really play with that many people that came on. But you were saying something else I fell down. Uh. So what
happened was they were moving on. And when I look back, and like when that record we made, everybody had to bring in a song and Steve had made this 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 because he was into James Brown, but you know, more modern grooves but with harmony and stuff moving like jazz but not necessarily in the traditional kind of two five to one way, and things that
weren't in that kind of form, like no aaba forms and that kind of thing. Right, So what I wrote was more poppish, so to say, and if you if you would listen 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. But it really pointed to something more commercial, so to say, than they're writing and you know, I know so many it was like a potpourria music, which was probably good that the record never came out.
But 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 a fusion gig, like when I auditioned for Wayne it was fourteen drummers, and you know, I got the gig somehow, and that was my first real foray into
just you know, playing group stuff. But I had been listening, of course, to Weather Report and all of that, and you know, coming up, I mean Earthen when the Fire was my favorite band. You had asked earlier if I was listening to all this other music. I mean, I remember the first place I was when I heard Go Go at a party. Excuse me, where'd you hear Go Go? At a party in West Medford? In Medford?
Well, I said there was a black community. See it's not, but it's so go Go is so localized. That's why I'm like it made it up there.
Okay, yeah, of course, yeah, chuck frown. And then I remember the first time, you know, I was at another one of those parties. You know, I heard rappers Delight. You know, it was my first introduction to hip hop. I didn't know what was happening before that, but yeah, you know, so like I was listening to all of that stuff coming up, and you know, just as a sidebar, I was in B Street, so I feel like I was.
Actually stop, stop, come back.
You did know that, no, yeah.
I'll say to a little clip. It was just like a quick cameo.
But wait when they were doing the ballet thing on stage. Yep.
Yeah, but I was brought in from Medford, Massachusetts by Harry Belafonto to play like this little drum fill.
I'm sorry, these sentences are so compound that you give.
My hair.
Belafonte for the Beach Street came.
Because, yeah, because he was the producer of Beach Street and was playing in his band. So I had made an album that's actually gonna come out forty years now with Kenny Baron, Bussell Williams and George Coleman, and I was I was sixteen at a 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 Witchita vessel 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 tap and she gave it to Harry and then out of the blue, he just called and we thought it was a joke. You know, there's a couple of people that called. We thought it was a joke. Benny Goodman call once too. We definitely thought that was a joker. It was, and them like yeah with Harry though.
Yeah, we were coming from you are making the wrong movies around the wrong people.
I'm like, when is this movie?
Literally I'm literally okay, I'm watching the scene right now.
I'm sorry, I had to pull it up with my monitor.
Yeah.
No, I was talking about Terry lynk care into movie about her life because it's r never in my whole there's never been, never never.
It's just it's funny. It's yeah. Yeah, So I feel like, you know, like some weird in some weird way, that was you know, that was the word I'm looking for it. I was kind of predicting. You know, I've always felt connected to all the genres. You 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 La 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.
And also you stay collaborating with folks.
So I'm like, I know you still got your ear to the streets because you know, you still got folks like Rhapsody on Records and whatnot.
So yeah, I'm doing an R now for a Candid which is an old label that John Burke and the team that he's with, Acceleration Music. They're buying labels. They bought Alligator Records. They about Candidate about a hip hop label too. So I'm doing it, you know. So it's a dream that I always wanted. I always wanted to do. I read hit Man back in the day, and I wanted to do an R. And one day I was walking and I said, well that's.
When you know you've read hip Man and then still wanted to be in the industry.
Oh yeah, that was what I wanted to do.
Light to be like, nah, don't don't come here.
I wanted to do 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 we're doing. We're doing that right, Suzanda Pass and Sylvia Rome. Yeah, so when people ask me about glass ceilings, that's what I say as a producer, as an R person, those are the places I felt more of a glass ceiling and playing the drums.
Necessarily, like you ain't got the ears?
Yeah, like like I've mean or like I'm in some little jazz box over here that you know, because I'm like all of those people were attorneys. They don't have no years on me.
So what are you an r AND for right now? Specifically? Like what do you what?
You Well, the idea with Candida, and it's all relatively new, but is to try to find people that are really merging jazz with hip hop. And that's fun assignment, yeah exactly. But it's a catalog label too, and we're not going to say no to certain cool records. So the first record that I got done happened to be a live record with Wayne Shorter, Esperanza and myself, and so that's gonna be coming out in September, I think. And then I have a new record that would be coming out
on it too. And then the other person I signed was Morgan Garn who's been playing in my band. But he's like a program, dude. It's not necessarily hip hop, but it's like I don't know, it's kind of like if you took Wayne Shorter and had him like today and programming and using you know, all of the right things that are available today.
You know, So I have so many questions.
But since we're just going all over the place as a professor, coming full circle now back to Berkeley.
Do you find yourself in a position?
So the year that I left NYU, I did n YU for like four or five years, and my last year I kind of had an O ship moment when I realized that my students knew more than I did. You know, we were talking about I think my last class, I believe we taught about Thriller, and they had a lot of synth questions like synth choice questions that I had to do extra homework, and I realized, like, yo, these kids are smarter and shit like, they know more than I do as a professor, especially with where music
is going. And now I don't know specifically the class that you're teaching at Berkeley, but you know, there's so many levels of musicianship as far as like gospel chop musicians and broken beat musicians. I guess now there's lo fi kind of that genre of music or whatever in your mind, 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 member in my group right now who we don't know exactly how to describe what Stroe Elliott does where he plays a drum machine as if he is Taikowski, or like a piano player where he's playing samples and whatnot. So with this whole new generation of musicians there, like what is teaching a student at Berkeley in twenty twenty two henceforth, when it seems that now is the time when the rules are being just washed away and new rules are coming in.
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 writing and uh and the players you know, like Morgan and uh, 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 leads into classical composers. You know, Morgan's into you know,
more of the kind of new school jazz. Uh. And then I had Casa Overall, who is not really with us any more. Kokaia's doing it, but Cosa uh, you know is definitely kind of into more cocaine, yeah, jazz me hip hop. So that I did was for me to recognize kind of like you know, Prince did, right, And Uh, 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 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 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 or something that 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't see how, you know, listening to this younger generation, how it has influenced me to some degree, you know. And so as far as the stranger strange land, I don't really feel that. I feel like I'm constantly being fed, you know, and it kind of you know, in the end, you know, comes up my way, and I still feel like I can comment, you know, on what they're doing.
So you're still at Berkeley.
Yeah, absolutely, I'm always a student, always a student. But you know, what that 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. So 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 academia exactly. So the academia they started, you know, they were able to codify it in a way and then uh, you know, uh, what's the word make money from it?
Monetizer monetize, But there was another word modify, commodify. Yeah, ok, yeah, And I feel like now to get into a school you have to be on this certain level and have cone through this system, which is you know, is still dealing with you know, it's yes, it's prohibitive for a lot of people. Yeah, there's a racist, sexist system, you know, so income based what else what I mean, that's why it's racist. Yeah.
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 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 ballot, play something very simple, and man, they will all fall apart, one by one. They would just like fall this like if you ask them to play tea for two or chopsticks.
It was like asking them to play rights to spring. So as as a teacher, do you find it that more students are now in this We're in an era now where like your Instagram stories is fifteen seconds, like your TikTok is thirty seconds, Like you got to have all the impact of an entire performance in thirty seconds with you know, they don't believe that much in space or quietness anymore, like have is there such a thing as a drummer who just plays straight ahead and gives what's required?
Or are you dealing with like.
More gospel chops people that have to like have bells and whistles and firing, eating and everything.
Yeah, I love it. Time field is the most important thing period right for a drummer, Like if you don't have a time field it 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, it's 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. And I think the people that play free the best of once they have good rhythm. But as far as
the students are concerned, I don't teach drums anymore. I haven't done that in probably like six years or so. I just have ensembles and right now, I'm the artistic director of an institute, 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. But it's the same thing with all the instruments.
What you're saying, 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, you know, it's literally about teammate and you putting in your twenty percent and him putting in his twenty percent and doing one hundred percent? Is that harder to convey on students now? As far as ensemble is concerned, 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 ace
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 or prefer to listen to the gospel 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 the way short of in Herbie Hancock book, I think it's about touching the humanity and 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 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 there sound yet there's no pain, 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 there 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 it in music. But he said, you know, he was all star in college and then when he got to the Patriots, they said, now let us show you, you know, how to throw the ball or how to
catch the ball. He had to like go back.
He played it a little bit and.
Burn go back to the basics. So for me, that's the same with sound, you know, like why is it Dwayne Shorter could play one note and break your heart? 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 that's right, that's what because it's the sound is your spirit, right, you know what I mean?
I would say probably the Mosaic project is one of your most beloved projects. Could you tell me about just the whole concept of doing that album and and gathering these uh these women together to do this album and how it came to fruition.
Yeah, I did gig in Israel. I had a gig in Israel called Esperanza. It was the first time, well the second time we played together, and she was still like she had come out of Berkeley and started teaching at Berkeley, and that's when I met her first year teaching. So I called her and Jerry Allen and a saxophone player from Hall and Tennka 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 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 he play with these women? And I was kind of like, you know, when I look at somebody like Mary L. Williams who didn't want to play with other women, she said, well, why would I want to play with them when I'm playing with the best, you know, And I.
Was wondering how you felt about this?
Yes, okay, yeah, yeah. And so I shot away from it my entire career, and there was always be somebody like, you know, I played with Ingrid Jensen or you know, Renie Robinson, with Wayne, with Bernard Wright, you know, Rest in Peace, and there was always a woman here or there, you know, Jerry Back with Mbase and before that actually, but never all together, you know, And I really shot 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 twenty one 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, you know.
So this is how the sisterhood started?
Then, because I want to 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 that way.
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. That's something.
But as more greats are coming out of the fold, how does it be?
How is it a step down? And to play with Terry Well.
That's the well, I mean, that's the point that there's only going to happen. That's why I started apprenticeship program, the mentorship program New Music USA, because there's a lot of mentorship programs, but apprenticeship means you have to put them on the stage with you. And so we got a grant of one point two five million dollars to
do this three year program. And we have a these six applicants this first year, and we picked seven and so like I did pairings and so some of the mentors are Bob McFerrin and Wayne Shorter and you know, watch of different people. But some of the apprenticeships are with Chris Potter, Linda Mayhanou Esmza, 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 to, you know, they don't necessarily know that they need to contribute to this the shift, how do we get them? So I said, pay them, you know, the.
Men din women, then the women will start hiring women.
You know what I mean is once you know, everybody has to be invested in gender equity because it's for the good of everybody. And I just felt like 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 work. You know, this is our inaugural year. But anyway, I think that this last record, though, the
Waiting Game is the one. It's the only one I can listen to. Let's put it like that. The other ones is I can't. I can't really listen to a Waiting Game. I could still listen to. So I think that's for me my favorite of all the elbows real because I don't cringe when I listen.
So you're still like in your head about like I could have did that better, We could have did a big different take.
Or yeah, or just sometimes like Mosaic Projects, the first one, I mean I like things on the second one too, but the Mosaic Project, I think that the playing is good overall. There's like some sound things, like you know, some production things that really both with me. But 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 have 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.
Oh so you're writing writing these lyrics on waiting game.
Okay, Well, you've been also singing on all of your records.
That's you've sung on it since your first album, you've sung.
Yeah, except this last one. I didn't, you know, way to give it, but I wrote all the lyrics, but I tried to sing a little bit.
Man.
You you got to.
I guess bucket List check a project before she died, maybe like six months before Amy Winehouse died, she was stalking me daily telling me that her and I were going to redo Money Jungle and yeah, the Money Money Jungle album from Duke Ellington and Max Wroton and Charles Minkus, the famous trio record.
What I did that record?
I know? And you wound up pulling it off.
So we were planning me her and most Step and a few other musicians were going to cover.
The entire album.
Oh my god.
Right, and she passed away and ah, man, I was just heartbroken. And then a year and a half or for the for the fiftieth anniversary, you actually, what made you want to cover that entire album? Because when I see it, I was like, wow, what the hell? Like it came out, but I wasn't even mad at it. But what made you want to cover that album.
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 kind of haunted me. And I started reading all these Duke Ellington biography books and and I was transcribing, you know, in the piano, and I realized these are all mostly blues based songs, probably the easiest stuff that Duke Ellington wrote. And I knew that it was as far as I could go, you know, like with transcribing Duke Ellington a trio.
Record, you know, and that's the easiest.
Yeah, 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 it didn't sound like it so even you know, Christian said when he came in the session, he said, you know, you really could have just called most of these songs something else, you know, but you know, I just I wanted to make sure that I wasn't bastardizing, you know, Duke Ellington's music. And 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 that's how he felt, then I felt, okay, you know about changing his music to that degree.
Okay.
And at this phase of your career, and you pretty much have done everything. You've You've done scores, you've taught television, you've done everything. Is there something that you had yet to embarkle on that you wish to do for this phase of your career right now?
Oh man, I'm just getting started as far as I can. 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, a little tired. I'm fifty six. I'll be fifty seven and two months on somebody's baby, thank you. So I'm a little tired, you know, and I wish that I had some of these opportunities earlier. Like right now, I can tell you a couple of things really right, really.
Tell you about business in the fifties, Like I've been waiting for this at twenty.
I think it's the time. You're at least forty one, at least thirty nine.
Say that again now, because you're ready for it now, if you got any twenties, you would.
Have sucked it up.
Hello, well not maybe.
A mirror, Yeah, everybody would everybody.
He started so early.
So I don't know, I know, but I hear you. I hear you, I feel you because I feel the same way. And honestly, 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, you know, twenty years ago, I would have been going on thirty seven even fifteen years, have 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 opportunity unities, 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'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 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 hot have these opportunities, you know, like that weren't ready and why do we have to be like three times, Oh we have to be super dope.
No, that's just the program that way, right, like 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 mean writing, you know, projects, writing words, you know, like I'm writing the children's book, I'm doing some film for an exhibition.
As anybody approach you about a something about your life because there is no one about you. There's nobody like you in the world, Like it's.
Just nobody's nobody's approached me yet about that.
No memoir.
No, I'm just trying to get my dad. He's gonna like start because he has a better memory than me and he's eighty four.
Interview your dad right now.
Yeah, what I'm doing I'm currently in Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm going to 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, you know.
And I also want to say to you too, I use I tried to you might not hear the inspiration, but break you off. You know that end drum thing right, break you off, so like I have an end drump thing on a tune of mine on the second Mosaic Utrich Russian song when I found you, so that was like your inspiration. I'm going to break you off is what made me write that section at the end. But
this is in fifteen, but I think it's fifteen. But if you check it out, I don't know, you know, I said once the Wayne Shorter, I wrote this, you were my inspiration. He was like, oh yeah, wow.
We should have asked when we ever see y'all on a stage together on we Never damn should have asked that question because y'all never been on a stage together.
Never too late.
Now now, now's the time before.
I'm gonna tell Christian. I'm gonna tell Christian make it happen.
Here you go.
This is long overdue. I thank you so much for coming on that show. You got to come back because I've skipped so many, so many questions I had about your career that I've skipped.
Because about your fuller Lester Bowie, Diana Cross.
Yeah, Jimmy jam episode, sure you like. Terry's actually like a four hour episode on the real So I'm at my day Jo sneaking on my lunch break.
Thank you for existing, Terry, Thank you, thank you.
No, that's real like you.
You know, I saw you drumming mad early 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 inspiration.
See and thank you pretty wild. I never would have imagined that. And really that makes me feel really good.
Thank you so much.
Alone.
Yeah, well on behalf of like Sugar Steve, Unpaid Bill and font Tickeolo.
This is Quest Love and we will see you on the next go round on the next episode of Quest Supreme.
Piece we'st Love Supreme is a production of iHeart New Radio.
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