Born in 1965 in Medford, MA, Terri Lyne Carrington is an astonishing drum virtuoso, a freethinking bandleader, a respected educator, and an advocate for greater gender parity in the jazz world. Making her name as a ringer jazz drummer around New York City before moving to L.A. and joining The Arsenio Hall Show’s house band, she rose to a new level of visibility by touring with Wayne Shorter and, even more heavily, with Herbie Hancock in the ’90s and 2000s. Her breakthrough as a bandleader was her star-studded 1989 LP Real Life Story—the first in a long string of highly lauded Carrington bandleader albums, featuring a laundry list of greats from inside and outside of jazz. Her landmark Grammy-winning 2011 album The Mosaic Project featured a heavy roster of jazz and R&B guest singers, exemplifying Carrington’s hunger to push the boundaries of her genre.