Listen to Carolyn Wilkins’ take on Phil Bryant’s poem “Jazz Song.” Available with Stompin’ at The Grand Terrace.

A Conversation with Carolyn Wilkins

Boston jazz pianist and professor Carolyn Wilkins and Blueroad editor John Gaterud recently talked about Stompin’ at The Grand Terrace: A Jazz Memoir in Verse and her work on the project with author Philip Bryant.

JG: What was the genesis of your collaboration with Phil Bryant on Stompin’ at the Grand Terrace?

CW: When Phil and I were kids growing up on the South Side of Chicago, we lived about three houses down from each another. Phil and his sister Shaun were my first friends. Sometime around the age of ten, I knew I would become a composer, and shortly thereafter, Phil and I decided that we would write an opera together someday. Stompin’ is the direct result of that decision.

JG: What are some your memories about growing up in Chicago?

CW: In retrospect, I feel very fortunate to have grown up on the South Side during the 1950s and ’60s. It was a vibrant time both in black history and in Chicago history. Our neighborhood was safe and full of young families. Everyone left their back doors unlocked, and we kids ran from house to house. Although there was some crime, the hard drugs and serious violence that ruined the neighborhood in the late ’70s and ’80s were non-factors during the time I was growing up.

JG: What’s your formal musical education and professional training? You have a classical background. When did jazz become part of your life?

CW: I honestly cannot remember a time when I was not immersed in music. My parents are big music buffs, and my mother has a master’s degree in musicology from Smith College. She taught me to play piano and read music when I was about four. When I was eight, my formal lessons began, and, basically, I’ve been studying ever since. In addition to the piano, I played the cello in the school orchestra and drums in the school jazz band. It was this latter experience that really set me on the road to wanting to play jazz. I had always enjoyed listening to it, but once I discovered how much fun it was to actually play this music, I was hooked.

Beginning in seventh grade, I began to play the drums seriously. Soon I was taking lessons at Chicago Musical College and jamming with my friends (I was too young to play in the local clubs, but used to get every new Miles Davis album as soon as it came out). The highlights of my high school years were going to see Tony Williams give a drum clinic at Northwestern University and sneaking into the Roberts Show Lounge to see the legendary saxophonist Gene Ammons.

At Oberlin, I began as a dual major—percussion and piano—but soon switched to just percussion at the suggestion of my drum teacher. For the next few years, I focused on trying to get a job as a percussionist in a symphony orchestra. I freelanced in Pittsburgh, where I played under William Steinberg and Andre Previn, and in Chicago, where I played in orchestras conducted by Aaron Copland and Mitch Miller. There were musical highs and lows—but, over all, this was a frustrating period in my life. At this time, in the early 1970s, symphony orchestras were almost universally white and male. Many prospective employers were not ready for the idea of a black woman in their percussion section, and I had several unpleasant experiences. Finally, at the age of 30, after my daughter was born, I decided to return to my roots and learn jazz piano. Over the next five years, I reinvented myself as a jazz vocalist/pianist and began performing around the Boston area.

JG: What was your process in composing some of the Stompin’ pieces—which are terrific. Each stands as a song on its own, yet you’ve also created a thematic arc on the CD to match the larger storyline of Phil’s unfolding narrative. You also sing on two of the tracks. How did you approach the work?

CW: Phil’s poetry is always inspiring for me, evoking the times, places, and people of my youth. In my settings for these poems, I tried to create music that would both conjure an ambience unique to each poem and at the same time evoke essential jazz composers of the era—Monk, Mingus, Horace Silver.

JG: Berklee is among the world’s premier music schools, where you’ve been teaching voice, piano, and ensemble performance for many years. What are some of the rewards and challenges?

CW: I love to teach. It took me more than twenty years of focusing on a performing career and teaching on the side to realize that I often felt more fulfilled after a good day of teaching than after a gig in a bar full of drunks. I still love to perform, but thanks to my teaching career, I now pick and choose my performing opportunities. Berklee students are absolutely the best—they are dedicated and extremely focused. Their entire lives revolve around music. It’s a real privilege to be on the faculty there.

JG: Who are some of your favorite performers?

CW: Most of the artists Phil writes about in his poems. I’m a huge fan of the great jazz pianists of the 1950s and ’60s—among them, Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, Hank Jones, Sonny Clark, and Mary Lou Williams.

JG: In Phil’s poem and your song, “The Shape of Jazz to Come,” James and Preston argue about “the new thing”—what might be called avant-garde or free jazz. James is open to change, but Preston resists. It’s one of several recurring themes in the book; what’s your take on their discussion?

CW: This is one of my favorite poems in the book. I can remember having some variation on this same argument with several other musicians over the years. Though Ornette Coleman’s seminal album The Shape of Jazz to Come came out in the early 1960s, many people still consider him “avant-garde” today.

JG: You’ve traveled extensively as a performer, including to Latin America as a Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department. When did you go, and how was that experience?

CW: I’ve had the good fortune to do a bit of traveling as a musician, clinician, and teacher. In 1996, I did a State Department “Jazz Ambassador Tour” through Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador. It was awesome. The people were amazing—so warm, receptive, and into the music. I’ve also had the opportunity to travel for Berklee, auditioning prospective students and doing workshops in the United States, South America, Asia, and Europe. By far the most amazing Berklee trip I ever took was last year to Accra, Ghana, and Durban, South Africa. We auditioned hundreds of students and met some amazing musicians.

JG: Your resume reveals that you do a great deal of outreach in the Boston community, including workshops for kids at schools; public performances about the history of blues, gospel, and jazz; and regular Sunday services with your church. Can you comment?

CW: I do a fair amount of performances in the area, though less than I used to. For the past ten years, I’ve been the music director for the jazz worship service at the First Congregational Church in Cambridge.

JG: You also regularly perform on the club circuit in Boston and have four other CDs to your credit. You’re busy, indeed.

CW: I try to stay busy, but not so busy that my life gets out of balance. The important thing is not the quantity of the work, but its quality. In this regard, I feel very blessed to be a part of Stompin’. More than forty years ago, Phil and I said we would write an opera together—and at last our dream has come true.

Buy here.

Read an interview with Carolyn’s collaborator Philip S. Bryant here.