- This event has passed.
Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science
May 24, 2020 @ 2:00 pm
2-Day Livestream Event
click here to view the Livestream (VJC homepage)
Grammy-Award Winning Drummer and Founder of Berklee’s Jazz and Gender Justice Institute, Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science
Three-time Grammy award winner Terri Lyne Carrington grew up in a musical family – her first set of drums belonged to her grandfather who was Fats Waller’s drummer. A true protégé, she received a full scholarship to Berklee School of Music at age 11 where she was mentored by the legendary Jack DeJohnette. After Berklee, Carrington’s talent, ability and work ethic have earned her recognition as one of the most formidable musicians on the scene today. Carrington received an honorary doctorate at Berklee in 2003 and was appointed professor there in 2007. She now holds the Zildjian Chair in Performance and teaches at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute. Carrington toured with Herbie Hancock between 1997 and 2007 and has performed with the top musicians in the jazz world including Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, David Sanborn, Joe Sample, Cassandra Wilson, Clark Terry, and Dianne Reeves.
Carrington’s extensive recording career includes several albums she released as a leader, including The Mosaic Project, for which she won a Grammy for Best Vocal Jazz Album, and Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue, for which she won a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album—becoming the first woman ever to win a Grammy in this category. Her recording credits include work with Carlos Santana, John Scofield, Terence Blanchard, Dianne Reeves, George Duke, Nancy Wilson, Esperanza Spalding, and Geri Allen, among many others.
Schedule of Events
Saturday May 23rd, 8:00 pm
- Performance
- Premiere of new music videos
- Discussion and Q&A
Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science’s scheduled performance at the Jazz Center meets the challenges of our times by embracing technology; they will be expanding the event to include enhanced educational and communicative opportunities. The event kicks off at 8:00 PM on Saturday, May 23rd. The first hour will be a debut presentation of three videos of tunes from their recent recording. These videos will be recorded beforehand in the individual studios of each of the six musicians; their videographer will then craft the six layers, combining and editing each of the musical performances, into a unified whole. They will do this for each of the three tunes. After streaming these three videos, the group will come together, along with renowned activist Susan Rosenberg, in a Zoom panel discussion which will be moderated by Downbeat correspondent John Murph and VJC Director Eugene Uman. Together they will discuss the videos, the salient points and lessons learned; they will give advice on how we as a concerned community can move forward as doers rather than followers.
While the first half of Saturday’s offering reflects the first, structured portion of their recent recording, Waiting Game, the second hour will begin with two open, improvised pieces. This reflects the second portion of their album: a four part, freely improvised suite called “Dreams and Desperate Measures.” As Carrington said in the Berklee interview, “my goal was to go in to the studio and play for an hour without stopping, with no direction and to not do it twice – people are so used to hearing messages verbally that there’s not enough room left for the imagination.” Aaron Parks added “yes, there are many things that we’re against that we’re protesting. But there are also many things that we’re for: the idea of leaving room for each other, letting others take the lead, listening to each other and creating something together, that’s democracy in action.” For the Jazz Center’s livestream performance, the group will be dealing with the limits of latency (the delay that exists when communicating over the internet) because all the musicians will be performing from their own personal practice spaces spanning locations from Boston to Seattle. Carrington seems unfazed, or perhaps intrigued by the possibilities. In a recent phone call she said that, in this context, they will approach the freely improvised segment more like a conversation than a groove-based piece. All six of the band members will be featured in two separate offerings of about 10 minutes each. After the performance, the group will meet in a Zoom chat, moderated by VJC Director, Eugene Uman, to discuss the experience.
Sunday May 24th, 2:00 – 5:00 pm
- Masterclasses w/ audience Q&A
- Discussion of their work
2:00 – 2:45 pm Terri Lyne Carrington & Kassa Overall: “Rhythm, Textures and Space with Drums and Electronics” – Importance of rhythmic foundation, role of drummer, genre/style overlaps, new jazz, incorporating electronics with live band: groove, space and time, mind and body; drummers as producers, writers, lyricists, vocalists.
3:00 – 3:45 pm Aaron Parks & Debo Ray: “Intention and Communication” – Empathetic embodiment, drawing from personal experience; conjoining the meaning of words with melodic choices; listening and communicating in the moment; piano and voice; singing and playing the notes, conjuring and transmitting feeling.
4:00 – 4:45 pm Matthew Stevens & Morgan Guerin : “Collaboration: Becoming greater than the sum of our parts” – Co-writing; hearing and being heard; forming a collective artistic identity; synthesizing multiple perspectives/ideas through a group prism; putting ego, developing trust and humility.
The VJC is grateful for the ongoing support from the Vermont Arts Council, the Vermont Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Humanties.
