Terri Lyne Carrington's We Insist 2025! at Smoke Jazz Club

Terri Lyne Carrington
We Insist! 2025
Smoke Jazz and Supper Club
New York City
March 7, 2025

How best to revisit a classic album of Civil Rights-era jazz activism two generations after the fact? If you are drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, and you're re-imagining—her word—"We Insist! by Max Roach, you apply a deft hand that preserves the piece's political power and musical invention while subtly moving this masterwork to the present.

In the late set at Smoke Jazz & Supper Club—and coming soon to a streaming service near you—Carrington's take on the "Freedom Now Suite" (as the recording was subtitled upon its 1960 release), respectfully honored Roach's landmark composition while adding contemporary elements, musical and otherwise.

Indeed, the 59-year-old Carrington skirted being overly respectful to "We Insist!," in the way that sometimes renders past classics as rote museum pieces. For one, her late set at Smoke was nearly double the 37-minute length of Roach's recording. New elements swelling the piece included a Carrington poem, recited by dancer Christiana Hunte, that defined what freedom is in 2025, including "winning the moon lottery of generational wealth"—referencing a key personal-finance issue in the Black community—and not having "a police car—or any armed services vehicle—make you nervous."

Carrington also reworked—and retitled—the three parts of "Triptych," a central piece to the suite, to excise its duet, which on record featured Roach and his then-wife, singer Abbey Lincoln, building to a spirited and somewhat grating peak.

And yes, there was dancing, of which there is no record in past performances of "We Insist!" Hunte's occasional writhing forays at centerstage were athletic and sweaty, channeling the music's expressiveness and assertiveness. It wasn't exactly pretty, which perfectly fit the aesthetic of a piece whose frequent theme was struggle.

Carrington honored, though did not duplicate, the spare, unusual lineup of Roach's album. As recorded, "We Insist!" essentially pitted percussion against horns, along with bass accompaniment and intermittent singing from Lincoln, who was already a star in her own right. Some of the record's other players were prominent figures, too. Coleman Hawkins, who is hardly identified with the social ferment of '60s Black jazz, took an unlikely guest solo on one piece, and Roach's trio of fellow percussionists included Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji, whose 1959 Drums of Passion has been described as the first hit world music album.

Adding to the contemporaneity of her tribute, Carrington stocked her band with fresh, fine talents who were at most half or so of Carrington's age. Her lone fellow percussionist was vibraphonist Simon Moullier. That instrumentation made for a less polyrhythmic sound than Roach's recording, with its congas from Olatunji and Ray Mantilla. Rather, the vibes often suffused the music with warmth and created harmonic complexity that was absent from the Roach recording, which had no chording instrument.

Morgan Guerin not only acquitted himself well on tenor but doubled on electric bass. That addition, here and there, lent a slight R&B edge to the proceedings. He and Carrington—no stranger to a backbeat in some of her diverse projects—never overtly settled into a funk groove, but one was sometimes subtly implied. Milena Casado not only filled the big (if you will) shoes of Booker Little, the trumpeter on Roach's recording, with clear and assertive solos but sported a sculpted Afro and stylish outfit that evoked the look of a hip '60s —late '60s anyway—jazz bandstand.

Vocalist April May Webb is a Midwesterner more rooted in gospel and mainstream jazz than was the often-daring Lincoln. Yet she channeled Lincoln's parts with warmth, passion and deep musicality without ever being showy.

Needless to say, Carrington played, as she always does, with an authority that sustained grooves while splashing out as needed to add assertive accents on the cymbals or an economic fill or two.

The passion and focus of the Smoke "Insist Now!" tribute makes it an early contender for a standout jazz performance of the year, and Carrington's recorded version seems destined to make some 2025 best-of lists. The full album isn't out until June, Carrington said from the bandstand, but a single, the stirring "Freedom Day," is scheduled to begin streaming during the week starting March 10.

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