At the age of 7, Carrington was given a set of drums that had belonged to her grandfather, Matt Carrington, who had played with Fats Waller and Chu Berry.
After studying privately for three years, she played her first major performance at the Wichita Jazz Festival with Clark Terry. At the age of 11 she received a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music.
At Berklee College of Music she played with leading musicians such as Kevin Eubanks, Donald Harrison, Greg Osby and others. She also studied under master drum instructor Alan Dawson and made a private recording entitled TLC and Friends, with Kenny Barron, Buster Williams, George Coleman and her father, Sonny Carrington, before turning 17. Throughout high school she traveled across the country doing clinics at various schools and colleges.
In 1983, encouraged by her mentor, Jack DeJohnette, Carrington moved to New York, where she worked with Stan Getz, James Moody, Lester Bowie, Pharoah Sanders, Cassandra Wilson, David Sanborn, and others.
In the late 1980s Carrington relocated to Los Angeles, where she gained recognition on late-night TV as the house drummer for The Arsenio Hall Show, then again in the late 1990s as the drummer on the late night TV show VIBE, hosted by Sinbad. In 1996 she collaborated with Peabo Bryson on “Always Reach For Your Dreams”, a song commissioned for the 1996 Olympic Games.
Notably, in recent years, she has included Esperanza Spalding, Geri Allen, Helen Sung, James Genus, Bob Hurst, Patrice Rushen, Tineke Postma, Ingrid Jensen, Nona Hendryx, Chihiro, Everette Harp, Greg Phillinganes, Lori Perry, Robert Irving III, Dwight Sills, Lawrence Fields, Randy Runyon, Gary Thomas, Aruan Ortiz, and Munyungo Jackson in her band configurations.
In 2007 she was appointed professor at her alma mater, Berklee College of Music, where she received an honorary doctorate in 2003. Carrington also serves as Artistic Director of the Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival.
Since 2011, she also appears with Wayne Shorter (with John Pattituci and Danilo Perez), she is the Musical Director of the international “Sing The Truth” Tour …. featuring Dianne Reeves, Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo (with Romero Lubambo, Geri Allen, James Genus and Munyungo Jackson), and she tours with Geri Allen and Esperanza Spalding as the “ACS Trio.”
Recordings
As a recording artist, in 1988 Carrington started concentrating her efforts on writing and producing her own works … resulting in Real Life Story, her 1989 Grammy-nominated debut CD featuring Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter, Grover Washington, Jr., Gerald Albright, John Scofield, Hiram Bullock, Patrice Rushen, Greg Osby, and Dianne Reeves.
In 2002, she released Jazz is a Spirit, a European market CD featuring Herbie Hancock, Wallace Roney, Terence Blanchard, Kevin Eubanks and Gary Thomas.
In 2004, she released Structure, a collaboration with with Jimmy Haslip, Greg Osby and Adam Rogers.
After a 20-year hiatus from U.S. recording, Carrington released the acclaimed 2009 CD More to Say … Real Life Story: NextGen, a sequel to her 1989 Real Life Story CD. The album features Nancy Wilson, Les McCann, George Duke, Kirk Whalum, Everette Harp, Christian McBride, Jimmy Haslip, Greg Phillinganes, Robert Irving III, Patrice Rushen, Chuck Loeb, Walter Beasley, Anthony Wilson, Lawrence Fields, Ray Fuller, Dwight Sills, Lori Perry and Chris Walker, with a special appearance by Sonny Carrington. Most of the 15 tracks on the CD are written or co-written by Carrington.
In 2011, she released The Mosaic Project, her fifth album overall and her first on Concord Jazz, which featured a number of singers. It won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album.
Terri Lyne Carrington Interview http://jazzonline.gr/en/articlesinterviews/interviews/item/2717-terri-lyne-carrigton.html
About Mosaic project http://www.jazzonline.gr/en/jazznews/cd-from-abroad/item/365-terri-lyne-carrington-mosaic-project.html
Terri Lyne Carrington at Sani Festival 2014. http://www.jazzonline.gr/en/jazznews/jazz-festival-in-greece/item/2649-sani-festival-highlights-2014.html
