Kendrick Scott

Kendrick Scott is a great young drummer who is making waves in Jazz circles these days. I first heard Kendrick in Washington D.C. while playing with vocalist Julie Hardy in 2003. She gave me a CD of her music to learn for our gig and after some listening (like after the first 8 bars!) I was like: "Who the hell is this amazing drummer ???" Of course, it was her friend Kendrick Scott whom she and her husband/pianist Randy Ingram had gone to school with and played with during their days in Boston. I was immediately a fan.

Lucky for me I heard Kendrick play later that week and met him backstage at a gig of his in Washington D.C., at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he was playing with Terence Blanchard's band. Kendrick is the regular drummer in Blanchard's band and is really playing great these days.

To me, Scott is a perfect example of a great contemporary jazz drummer who has all the tools necessary to play Jazz music effectively in today's crazy world: great technique, swings hard, grooves hard, nice touch & feel on the drums, impeccable musicality and he is able to switch stylistic gears and combine musical styles effectively without sounding cliched.

Here's Kendrick in a couple of solos spots with non other than Herbie Hancock:





Nice gig to have !

And here's a couple of clips of Scott performing with tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene:





And some more nice footage of Kendrick Scott playing with his current employer, Terence Blanchard:





Kendrick Scott also has a couple of albums released under his own name and I would highly recommend these to anyone interested in checking out this fine contemporary jazz drummer.