By Sheryl Aronson
Terri Lyne Carrington released the CD, Mosaic Project: Love and Soul, August 2015. A few months later, I had an opportunity to interview the three-time Grammy Award winning artist over the phone and discuss the inner workings of how the CD was produced. I had a personal connection to one of the songs on Love and Soul because I had been invited to a recording session with Terri Lyne Carrington and Chante Moore as they worked on recording, “The Best” a composition dedicated to Mr. George Duke.
Here’s Terri Lyne Carrington’s different spin on Love and Soul.
“I decided to do it my way…to put my spin on the theme of love. It is definitely a theme that is important to me. I wanted to express it in R&B music that was cleverly written…not the same thing that you hear over and over again,” said Terri Lyne Carrington, three times Grammy winner, about her newest CD, The Mosaic Project, Love and Soul.
The collection of twelve songs from The Mosaic Project, Love and Soul paint love’s colors in a myriad of ways leading the listener through a gallery of emotional stories that honor the heart. In these original and cover compositions, not only is romantic love talked about, but love for a mentor, love for mother from a child’s perspective, love for God, love that suffers and love that wins.
Ms. Carrington gathered a group of forty women artists to flush out her vision. Eleven of those musicians were a list of all-star vocalists: Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, Valerie Simpson, Lalah Hathaway, Ledisi, Chante Moore, Oleta Adams, Paula Cole, Jaguar Wright, Lizz Wright and legendary, Nancy Wilson. A year before the CD was realized, Carrington reflected deeply on the essence of each song, and what vocalist she would ask to portray her ideas. “It was an evolution. The first couple of vocalists I asked were Oleta Adams Paula Cole and Val Simpson, then Lizz Wright and Jaguar Wright…it kept coming together… it kept evolving. I knew who I wanted to get and luckily pretty much every body I talked with heard themselves on the track.”
Carrington produced and arranged all the music, wrote the lyrics and music for a few songs, and even showed off her vocal talent on Can’t Resist. Billy Dee Williams’s sexy, soulful voice narrates the opening of the album as he quotes one of Terri’ Lyne’s musical mentors, Wayne Shorter.
Music is but a drop in the ocean of life…
In the eyes of eternity
The essence is neither round nor square…
Following the dreamy introduction, are an array of sophisticated, intricately composed melodies exuding a mixture of the classic R&B sound intermingled with jazz’s complex rhythms and improvisational arrangements. In earlier interviews with Terri Lyne Carrington, she has told me that being identified just as a jazz musician is too limiting. The display of music here is neither jazz nor Soul, but a brilliant composite of styles that will delight fans of either genre. Carrington said on The Mosaic Project, Love and Soul YouTube video, “Jazz needs R&B.” And visa versa perhaps.
The first song on the CD is Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday sung by Natalie Cole. Themelody floats easily like a prayer with Cole’s serene voice praising God, yet Terri Lyne’s rapid drumming underneath counteracts the leisurely pacing. It’s as if we’re feeling man’s hectic stride upon earth while God looks down from above. Terri talks about the unusual rhythms of the melody. “ You’re hearing three different layers of rhythm. First you hear the BPM (beats per minute) moving very quickly, then if you listen to the bass and piano, they play half of that…. and the vocal is half of that. They’re all different, creating layers of rhythm. I like that contrast.”
Chaka Kahn’s version of I’m A Fool to Want You, originally written and sung by Frank Sinatra, lambastes a lover’s need to still care for their partner. The melody continuously flies off never resolving itself just like the suffering of a broken heart. However, Chaka expresses the sadness with a breathy lilting voice lifting up the spirit. Ms. Carrington explained how she arranged the song. “ Frank wrote the lyrics to express how he was feeling about Eva Gardner, the love of his life. He did suffer and expressed that in his singing as much as much as he will emote with his voice. The Chaka version is a much happier song… I was nervous about the music sounding too happy for the lyrics. the music brings out a joyous feeling…”I’m a fool to want you”… that’s what it is like in real life…raunchy … but that’s life in love.”
Oleta Adams low, sultry bluesy voice clutches the soul with the intensity of a woman’s pain when she cries out “I’ll be the best that I can…I got myself ready for you to love…” in the song Luther Vandross made popular, For You To Love. One feels her desperation to please her man. “ Luther sang this song smooth and sexy and you really didn’t feel the pain he was trying to convey but when Aleta sings it, she gets down with it emotionally.”
The song this musician/producer/composer is most proud of writing is Imagine This rendered by the voluptuous purring voice of Nancy Wilson. The melodic lines skip along as a story unfolds like a narrative poem. “ Imagine This is actually my favorite lyric writing. It feels like an old standard the way the lyric is crafted. I wanted to write that classic way and I’m proud of the way it turned out.”
Teaming up with Valerie Simpson again, the two artists re-recorded the Ashford/Simpson hit song, Somebody Told A Lie with a new take. At one point the music breaks off into a surprising interlude of an upbeat salsa sounding rhythm with a piano and flute soloing. So delightful. So unexpected. When asked why she added this dimension to the piece, Carrington said, “… I think in that section the voice is singing “going to heaven… heaven… somebody told a lie… heaven is in the sky … “ I was thinking about Nick having passed away and him writing lyrics. He wrote the lyrics and Val wrote music… I wanted to convey the feeling of ascension in that section, thinking about him and returning to ancestral rhythms of African 6/8 beat… heaven and earth all rolled up in one.”
The writing talent of Terri Lyne Carrington illustrates depth and range as shown in the lyrics of three songs, Can’t Resist, This Too Will Pass and The Best. A playful and joyous reverie jumps out with Carrington’s lusty vocals as she skirts down the avenue of love…”Can’t stop thinking of you…I hear you calling me…your voice is so sexy” in the tune Can’t Resist. Interestingly, Terri confided that this tune was one of the hardest to sing. “Can’t Resist is one of the harder melodies on the whole CD. I picked the actual melody because it sits in my range and it’s one that I wouldn’t be embarrassed singing.”
Polar opposite in mood reins the sorrowful tale of a child’s observations watching her mother suffer illness and dissolution of the family. This Too Will Pass attracted Lalah Hathaway many years ago when she and Terri Lyne knew each other in Los Angeles. Lalah always wanted to perform the song but the time was never right.
“When I first played the song on my demo, I heard Lalah’s voice on it. She gravitated toward it too when first hearing the song. We hung out a lot when I lived in LA, but when I moved to the East Coast, we let the idea go. Every now and then she would ask me about the song. Finally, last year I said I had a version that would work and she still wanted to sing it.”
In May of 2014, Terri Lyne Carrington invited me into a studio session with Chante Moore as they worked on the song, The Best. For about three hours I watched Ms. Carrington and Ms. Moore interact harmoniously offering feedback to each other with an easy flow of conversation. I heard the lyrics again and again…”Magic in the evening, making love, making music…you’re the best, you’re the best…” and thought to myself, what a lovely romantic song. When I commented to Terri Lyne she smiled and said, “This song is a tribute to George Duke who was a mentor to me for learning how to become a record producer. He was also very close to Chante Moore and Val Simpson who co-wrote the music with me.” The final version that ended up on The Mosaic Project, Love and Soul still enchanted me. In Chante Moore’s heavenly voice and in the soft swaying groove of the music, the love and soul of these women glowed.
Terri Lyne Carrington has put her own spin on romance and love in her newest CD, The Mosaic Project, Love and Soul. The sterling efforts of all the musicians involved in the project definitely echo the lines that she wrote to the great George Duke…making love-making music.
For more information about Terri Lyne Carrington and The Mosaic Project, Love and Soul go to: http://www.terrilynecarrington.com