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ACS: Geri Allen, Terri Lyne Carrington, Esperanza Spalding

About this Artist

ACS (Geri Allen, Terri Lyne Carrington and Esperanza Spalding) gathers three of the most important female instrumentalists in current jazz. Formed out of their work together on Carrington’s Grammy Award winning album “The Mosaic Project,” the small ensemble stretches boundaries and revels in the art form. In response to their debut at New York’s legendary Village Vanguard, The Village Voice remarked, “the set’s expressionistic push-pull turned out to be a show of jazz fealty as disorienting as it was riveting.” The trio is elegant, experimental, and unquestionably bold.

Geri Allen is an internationally recognized composer and pianist. Since 1982 she has recorded, performed or collaborated with Ravi Coltrane, Dianne Reeves, Bill Cosby, Ron Carter, Ornette Coleman and Paul Motian. Allen is also an active jazz educator, and has taught at the New England Conservatory, The New School in New York and her alma mater, Howard University. She currently teaches at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance as an Associate Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation.

American drummer Terri Lyne Carrington has been at the top of the music industry for almost 25 years, collaborating with luminaries like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, David Sanborn, Joe Sample, Cassandra Wilson, Clark Terry, Nancy Wilson, George Duke, Dianne Reeves, and numerous others. Her latest endeavor, “The Mosaic Project,” brings together some of the world’s most celebrated female instrumentalists and vocalists.

In one of the most startling achievements in jazz history, bassist Esperanza Spalding captured the world’s attention upon earning the title of Best New Artist at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. A gifted composer with a hypnotic voice, Spalding stretches the boundaries of jazz and continues her evolution with the 2012 release of Radio Music Society, which she describes as “bombastic and fun – funkier and more upbeat” than her critically acclaimed Chamber Music Society.