Biography

NEA Jazz Master and three-time Grammy award-winning drummer, producer, and educator TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON started her professional career while studying under a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She gained national recognition on late night TV as the house drummer for both the Arsenio Hall Show and Quincy Jones’s VIBE TV show. 

While still in her twenties, Ms. Carrington toured extensively with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, among others, and in 1989 she released a Grammy-nominated debut CD on Verve Forecast, Real Life Story. In 2011 she released the Grammy-winning album, The Mosaic Project, followed by Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue in 2013, which also earned a Grammy, establishing her as the first woman ever to win in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category. 

She has toured or recorded with artists such as Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, Woody Shaw, Diana Krall, Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves, James Moody, Yellowjackets, esperanza spalding, and many more. Additionally, Ms. Carrington is an honorary doctorate recipient from Berklee, and she currently serves as Founder and Artistic Director for the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. 

In 2019 Ms. Carrington was granted the Doris Duke Artist Award, in recognition of her past and ongoing contributions to Jazz music. Her current band project, Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science (a collaboration with Aaron Parks and Matthew Stevens) released its debut album, Waiting Game, in November 2019 on Motema Music. The album was nominated for a 2021 Grammy award.