A Conversation with Terri Lyne Carrington

By Naomi Extra

On a chilly January afternoon in 2018, WJF hosted the “Jazz and Gender: Challenging Inequality and Forging a New Legacy” panel to a room jam-packed and buzzing with energy. Angela Davis, Lara Pellegrinelli, Arnetta Johnson, Vijay Iyer, and Esperanza Spalding spoke, with Terri Lyne Carrington as moderator. Since 2018, a great deal has happened in the world of “jazz and gender.” I caught up with Carrington to talk about the new book that she edited, New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers and the New Standards Live perfor- mance at WJF this year. Here, Carrington shares insights on where we are in the jazz and gen- der conversation in 2023, and why not just equality, but justice is crucial to this movement.

Would you mind sharing a little bit of the backstory of the book?

I had some students that had trouble finding compositions by women artists. And it’s not just the students. Over the years, people have mentioned that it’s hard to find songs written by women in the jazz canon. I hadn’t really thought about it a whole lot because we’re all just out here playing. And those of us that are performers mostly play original music.

For those who might not know, what are jazz standards and why do they matter?

Part of what makes them a standard is the form in some ways, but also that people have made it their business to learn these songs and play them over the years. And so we had the old standards from the Tin Pan Alley days. Then, we had newer standards-–Miles Davis, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner and John Coltrane. [But] who made these decisions? Women have been left out of that canon, for the most part. So I thought, let’s put together a collection of songs.
I wanted [the book] to span a long period of time. It’s about 99 years, starting with Lil Hardin Armstrong to some recent Berklee grads.

What are some of your goals for the book?

I want everyone to be invested in the future of the music and take ownership in something that doesn’t necessarily reflect their exact [identity] group. I want for my male colleagues to not just support the book because they know me. I want them to support it because they re- ally feel it’s important, that the voices that have been left out need to be acknowledged, and [because] they think there’s some music in there that would resonate with them.

Tell me about the New Standards Live performance that will be happening at WJF.
What can people expect?
It’s to highlight the music from the book. We have four sets with four different combinations of players. It’ll feature people who are composers in the book and will be rounded off by some other New York musicians. There will also be a set of the Next Jazz Legacy Emerging Artists from the apprenticeship and mentorship program that we’ve done in collaboration with New Music USA.

I remember seeing you moderate the Jazz and Gender panel at WJF back in 2018. Can you share some of your reflections on that moment and where you are with your thinking now?

2018 is the year that our [Jazz and Gender] Institute [at Berklee College of Music] started.
It was all kind of new to me. I wasn’t sure what to even name the Institute. I was thinking “gender equity.” It was pointed out to me by my friends Angela Davis and Gina Dent that I needed to use the word “justice” because you can have equity without having justice, without changing the conditions that created the inequity in the first place. I started to understand more about the importance of words.

Have things progressed, in terms of the widespread call for gender justice and equity in jazz?
I think things have changed since then [and] are in the process of changing. I go back and forth because I’d like to think that eventually one day we’ll be able to check off a box and say, “Okay, we did that in jazz. Now there’s equity, now there’s justice.” But I don’t think it works quite like that. I would be very happy to see jazz and gender get to a place where everybody can pursue their dreams and not have quite as many burdens to deal with. I do see some change and that’s really exciting and inspiring because it makes you want to keep doing the work when you see a groundswell of momentum.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.