Terri Lyne Carrington sets a new standard

Whatever the key is to make successful albums, Terri Lyne Carrington has found it.

Terri Lyne Carrington – New Standards Vol. 1 (Candid, 2022)

It is hard not to be impressed by Terri Lyne Carrington who keeps producing extraordinary albums. New Standards Vol. 1 is no exception. It is a very nice collection of songs performed by some of the best musicians in jazz like pianist Kris Davis, bassist Linda Oh, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, and guitarist Matthew Stevens.

And then there are the list of guests which reads like a who’s who of modern jazz and includes Dianne Reeves, Ambrose Akinmusire, Val Jeanty, Ravi Coltrane, and many more. But no matter how many guest stars Carrington holds a steady course and produces an album which has unity and thought. It does not even matter that she mixes instrumental and vocal tracks. On the contrary it gives a nice contrast and the core group with herself, Davis, Oh and Stevens makes it work.

Perhaps the title of the album needs some explanation. It simply refers to all of the songs on the album being written by women. Carrington has previously been involved in gender issues in jazz as when she had a band of all women on her Grammy-awarded album The Mosaic Project. That album had many songs written by women as well, but not exclusively as now.

Songs in many styles

Can you tell? Only two of the songs are familiar to me previously: Throw It Away by Abbey Lincoln, and Lawns by Carla Bley. Considering how good the rest is there seems to be a need for performing more compositions by women. There is Elaine Elias romantic ballad Moments which gets lyrics sung by Reeves. Another beautiful ballad is Ima by clarinetist Anat Cohen where Stevens plays the romantic theme on acoustic guitar.

On the other side of the spectrum is Rounds by pianist Marilyn Crispell which has a very free but dense structure. It is recorded live in contrast to the other studio recordings which adds to the songs dynamic nature which has everyone stretching including guest trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. So, if anything the album shows how many different styles women in jazz writes music in.

Among my favorites are Wind Flower by Sarah Cassey who lived in New York in the 1950s and had her songs recorded by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day. Her song still sounds modern with interesting rhythms and harmonies I guess you just have to listen to how great the songs on the album are. There are plenty more which I have not mentioned which deserves to be listened to.