Mind’s Ancestral Gatekeepers with Terri Lyne Carrington
What is it about rhythm that dissolves separation and draws us into a shared pulse?
At the heart of this episode lies a quiet but unshakable conviction: that every life, every struggle, every creative breakthrough, is a quest for freedom.
Few voices today carry that conviction with more authority than Terri Lyne Carrington, four-time Grammy winner, NEA Jazz Master, and one of the most vital figures in music of our time. In this conversation, she traces the search for freedom from its deepest roots to its most urgent expressions in the present.
It begins with a child at a drum kit, and a family sensing something uncanny, a story that reaches back across generations, and across oceans, to a lineage in which rhythm was never only sound, but memory, identity, and a spiritual code passed through the hands of those entrusted to keep it alive.
From there, Terri takes us into what jazz truly is at its core: a kind of liberation theology. Born of displacement and oppression, it became a communal act of survival, intellectual, radically creative, radically free. And it is in that freedom, expressed through improvisation, that something remarkable happens: boundaries begin to stretch, time itself begins to bend, and the music reaches far beyond those who first gave it voice.
But as you’ll discover, Terri is not only conscious of history, she is making it. Through the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, she is carrying that same liberating impulse into new territory, challenging the hyper-masculine structures that have shaped jazz for decades and opening doors for voices that might otherwise have gone unheard. With this, she brings music into some of the most urgent conversations of our time: gender equality, and the building of a truly universal legacy.
A vibrant episode, infused with Terri’s ancestral rhythm and potent intellect, in which she returns us to the essential elements of rhythm itself: its flow, its healing power, and its quiet, seductive pull into that spiritual place which is eternal: the present.
Why drummers are the mind’s gatekeepers, and what they are guarding that is so much greater than music itself, is what this episode invites you to discover.
LINKS & INFO:
https://www.terrilynecarrington.com
https://college.berklee.edu/jazz-gender-justice
We extend our warmest thanks to Terri Lyne Carrington, ACT Music + Vision GmbH, Whaling City Sound, Candid Records, LLC, and Motéma Music, LLC for their kind courtesy in allowing us to feature the music selected for this episode.
MUSIC CREDITS:
Album: Jazz Is a Spirit (2002) Performed by Terri Lyne Carrington ℗ & © 2002 ACT Music + Vision GmbH Courtesy of ACT Music + Vision GmbH. Used with permission. Track used from the album: – “Journey Agent” — composed by Terri Lyne Carrington
Album: Excursions and Adventures (2020) Performed by Tim Ray, Terri Lyne Carrington, and John Patitucci ℗ & © 2020 Whaling City Sound Courtesy of Whaling City Sound. Used with permission. Tracks used from the album: – “Yours Is My Heart Alone” (from The Land of Smiles) — composed by Franz Lehár – “Nothing From Nothing” — composed by Billy Preston and Bruce Fisher – “Gone, Not Forgotten” — composed by Tim Ray – “Yo 11” — composed by Tim Ray
Album: New Standards, Vol. 1 (2022) Performed by Terri Lyne Carrington ℗ & © 2022 Terri Lyne Carrington. All rights reserved. Under exclusive worldwide license to Candid Records, LLC. Courtesy of Candid Records. Used with permission. Tracks used from the album: – “Throw It Away” — composed by Abbey Lincoln – “Unchanged” — composed by Marta Sanchez – “Wind Flower” — composed by Sara Cassey – “Ima” — composed by Anat Cohen – “Moments” — composed by Eliane Elias – “Two Hearts (Lawns)” — composed by Carla Bley
Album: We Insist 2025! (2025) Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell (featuring Milena Casado, Morgan Guerin, Simon Moullier, and Matthew Stevens) ℗ & © 2025 Candid Records, LLC Courtesy of Candid Records. Used with permission. Tracks used from the album: – “Freedom Day (Part 1)” — composed by Max Roach, lyrics by Oscar Brown Jr. – “Triptych: Resolve / Resist / Reimagine” — composed by Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell”
Album: Matthew Stevens (2026) Matthew Stevens (self-titled) ℗ & © 2026 Candid Records, LLC. All rights reserved. Courtesy of Candid Records. Used with permission. Track used from the album: – “Who Does She Hope To Be?” — composed by Sonny Sharrock Performed by Matthew Stevens and Terri Lyne Carrington, featuring Jeff Parker
Album: Waiting Game (2019) Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science (featuring Esperanza Spalding, Matthew Stevens, and Aaron Parks) ℗ 2019 Ajari Music, LLC, under exclusive license to Motéma Music, LLC © 2019 Ajari Music, LLC Courtesy of Motéma Music. Used with permission. Track used from the album: – “Dreams and Desperate Measures, Pt. 2” — composed by Terri Lyne Carrington, Aaron Parks, Matthew Stevens, and Esperanza Spalding (improvised suite)
Standalone track “Can’t Resist” (demo) Written, performed, and produced by Terri Lyne Carrington (all instruments performed by Terri Lyne Carrington) Demo recording, prior to the studio release ℗ & © Terri Lyne Carrington / Ajari Music Courtesy of the artist. Used with permission.
Where can I get the above-mentioned Terri Lyne Carrington’s Music?
https://www.terrilynecarrington.com
https://candidrecords.shop.musictoday.com/dept/terri-lyne-carrington?cp=114189_114341_114652
https://whalingcitysound.com/recordings/wcs-119-tim-ray-excursions-and-adventures/
https://motema.com/artists/terri-lyne-carrington-and-social-science/
https://www.actmusic.com/artists/terri-lyne-carrington
For intro song Jazz Is a Spirit (2002) ©: Direct link to the album “Journey Agent©” : https://www.qobuz.com/de-de/album/jazz-is-a-spirit-terri-lyne-carrington/0614427940827
Berklee College of Music
Terri Lyne Carrington
Position: Artistic Director/Founder, Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice
Affiliated Departments:
Berklee Global Jazz Institute
Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice
Professional Performance Division
https://college.berklee.edu/people/terri-lyne-carrington
https://guides.library.berklee.edu/JGJ
Scholar Papers and Scholar Information mentioned in our conversation:
Music for Abolition:
https://ias.ucsc.edu/visualizing-abolition/music-for-abolition/
Visualizing Abolition
https://ias.ucsc.edu/visualizing-abolition/
Drum training induces long-term plasticity in the cerebellum and connected cortical thickness
Bruchhage MMK, Amad A, Draper SB, Seidman J, Lacerda L, Laguna PL, Lowry RG, Wheeler J, Robertson A, Dell’Acqua F, Smith MS, Williams SCR. Drum training induces long-term plasticity in the cerebellum and connected cortical thickness. Sci Rep. 2020 Jun 22;10(1):10116. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-65877-2. PMID: 32572037; PMCID: PMC7308330.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7308330
Communication of emotion via drumming: dual-brain imaging with functional near-infrared spectroscopy
Rojiani R, Zhang X, Noah A, Hirsch J. Communication of emotion via drumming: dual-brain imaging with functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2018 Oct 25;13(10):1047-1057. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsy076. PMID: 30215809; PMCID: PMC6204489.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30215809
Drumming To Communicate Emotion: Dual-Brain Imaging Informs An Intervention In A Carceral Setting
Rojiani, Rahil, “Drumming To Communicate Emotion: Dual-Brain Imaging Informs An Intervention In A Carceral Setting” (2019). Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library. 3527.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ymtdl/3527
