NEW YORK, NY. (Top40 Charts/ E1 Music) - E1
Music (formerly KOCH Records) is set to release Terri Lyne Carrington's long-awaited new release, "More to Say... (Real Life Story: NextGen)," on May 5th, 2009. "More To Say" is a vibrant and grooving album that showcases Carrington as an exceptional vocalist, and encompasses a broad range of musical styles, including funk, silky smooth R&B, Neo-Soul, Latin, and classic jazz. For "More To Say," Carrington executive produced, arranged and wrote or co-wrote most of the 15 tracks, making it an organic tour de force. "I wanted to create a sophisticated listening experience that cuts across musical categories," says vocalist, producer, composer and technology visionary Carrington. She burst onto the jazz recording scene in 1989 with her critically acclaimed and Grammy nominated debut album, "Real Life Story" (Verve Forecast). "I'm following up on the first CD, with more liberty to try some new music with one consistent quality: that the music feels good, that you can tap your foot to it, that it's danceable. It's a groove record."
Joining Carrington for the meticulously produced "More to Say" is an impressive all-star cast of jazz and contemporary jazz instrumentalists, including George Duke, Kirk Whalum, Everette Harp, Patrice Rushen, Jimmy Haslip, Gregoire Maret, Christian McBride, Danilo Perez, Dwight Sills, Chuck Loeb, Walter Beasley, Anthony Wilson and Robert Irving III (who also serves as co-producer, as he did with "Real Life Story").
The CD also features Terri Lyne's saxophone-blowing father, Sonny Carrington, on her original, "Papa San." "This is one of the more special moments for me," she says. "My goal was to write a modern-sounding song, but with the space in it for my Dad to do his thing in a bluesy kind of way with his soulful tenor reminiscent of Gene Ammons, Stanley Turrentine and Red Holloway."
In addition, Carrington enlists esteemed vocalists Nancy Wilson and Les McCann - two legends that she has known since childhood - to sing on her album. Wilson joins Carrington on one of the original tunes, "Imagine This," a "dream come true" session for Carrington. "If someone had said to me that Nancy Wilson would sing a lyric I wrote on my next CD, I probably wouldn't have believed them," she says. McCann sings a duet with Carrington on the modern blues "Hold Me Again." "I used to sit in with Les when he would come to Boston. He was always very supportive, and I love his voice and his music because it is so soulful."
While many recordings in recent years have featured noteworthy side personnel handpicked by a record label to boost a CD's profile, on "More to Say" Carrington performs with friends and colleagues with whom she has been working with in her 20-year-plus career. Since her prodigal drum talent turned heads when she was enrolled at the Berklee College of Music on a scholarship at the age of 10, Carrington quickly ascended in the upper echelon of the jazz world as a pioneering female jazz drummer.
Terri's elite industry status is profound. One would be hard pressed to name another contemporary musician that has seamlessly crossed genres with past, present and future musical standard bearers. Carrington has toured with Clark Terry, Stan Getz, Lester Bowie, Pharoah Sanders, Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves, Dizzy Gillespie, David Sanborn, Herbie Hancock, and was mentored by Jack DeJohnette. She was a member of Arsenio Hall's TV-show band, gigged in Wayne Shorter's group in the late '80s, and also has performed with Al Jarreau, Gino Vannelli and Stevie Wonder. On the R&B and pop side, Terri has performed and/or recorded with Bill Withers, James Brown, Rick James, Nona Hendrix, Natalie Cole, Meshell Ndegeocello, Beyonce, Sheila E, Aaliyah, Angie Stone, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Jaguar Wright, Chaka Khan, India.Arie, Siedah Garrett, Joan Osborne, Rita Coolidge, Chrissie Hynde and *NSYNC.
For "More to Say," Carrington says she brought onboard the likes of Duke, Sills and Rushen to bring their "soulful, funky voices. I wanted that sound for this album." But she also wanted to "add a different aesthetic" to the mix, which is why she enlisted Danilo Perez and asked Anthony Wilson to join the crew after she recorded with him for Diana Krall.
Carrington says she wanted to bring all parts of her musical personality to the CD to make it a look back to classic '70s/80s R&B Jazz and a look forward to what comes after Smooth Jazz. "The jazz legacy is so important to me, but I'm also a part of the groove tradition, where R&B, funk and hip-hop are important as well," she says.
