Terri Lyne Carrington: A Dance Record for Dark Times
The NEA Jazz Master and four-time Grammy winner joins us to discuss 'Trip the Night Fantastic,' the second album from Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science, which sets deportation, prison abolition, and climate collapse to music for the dance floor.
This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on drummer, composer, and educator Terri Lyne Carrington.
Carrington has just released Trip the Night Fantastic, the second album from her group, Social Science. It’s built for the dance floor but unflinching on the topics of deportation, prison abolition, and climate collapse.
We talk about trusting collaborators before they've earned it, playing to a rare, fully attentive crowd at Newport, and calling herself a "frustrated drummer" on a record built from words as much as rhythm.
(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Trip the Night Fantastic, the new album from Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science.)
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Dig Deeper
Artist and Album:
- Visit Terri Lyne Carrington at terrilynecarrington.com and follow on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Bandcamp
- Purchase Trip the Night Fantastic from Candid Records, Bandcamp, or Qobuz, and listen on your streaming platform of choice.
- Candid Records
Social Science:
- Aaron Parks — piano; wrote "Climate Song"
- Matthew Stevens — guitar; proposed the album's title phrase and wrote the "Solidarity Song" riff
- Morgan Guerin — multi-instrumentalist and the album's co-producer
"Riddim Song" Collaborators:
"Blues Song" and June Jordan:
- June Jordan — the poet's official site
- "These Poems" — the poem set to music on the album
- aja monet — the surrealist blues poet who performs it
Related Recordings:
- We Insist 2025! with Christie Dashiell, the Max Roach reimagining that interrupted this album — Bandcamp
- Waiting Game, the 2019 Social Science debut given to its label without an advance — Bandcamp
- Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (1960) — JazzTimes on the reissue
Institutions and Festivals:
- Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice — founded and directed by Carrington
- Newport Jazz Festival — where Social Science played on August 1, 2026
Also Mentioned:
- 13th — Ava DuVernay's documentary
- Best Alternative Jazz Album — the Grammy category Carrington helped create, first awarded in 2024
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- Dig into this episode's complete show notes at podcast.thetonearm.com
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