Award-winning jazz musician Regina Carter is headed home to perform at the storied Detroit Jazz Festival over the Labor Day Weekend (Sept. 1 through Sept. 4).
The jazz violinist, composer, arranger, and educator couldn’t be more excited about performing in the city where it all started for her personally and professionally. Carter and her group will take the stage on Saturday (the 2nd) at 8:55 p.m. on the JP Morgan Chase Main Stage in downtown Detroit.
“It’s always beautiful to come home, and I’m always excited to perform at the Detroit Jazz Festival, one of the biggest ‘all jazz’ free festivals in the world,” said Carter, a former “Artist in Residence.” “I remember first playing at the festival in the late 1980s, early ’90s with Detroit jazz greats like Lyman Woodard, Kenny Cox, and Straight Ahead…yeah!”
While Carter has an extensive portfolio of music to play for her hometown and thousands of festival attendees from around the globe, she said she will perform music exclusively from a project near and dear to her heart – and Detroit roots.
“I will be performing music that I wrote and some I didn’t write from a project called Gone in a Phrase of Air, which is actually an extension of a project that I did years ago called Black Bottom, a Black community in Detroit where my mother grew up in the 1920s,” Carter said. “Poet Leslie Reese, who is also from Detroit, interviewed people who grew up in Black Bottom. From her interviews, she turned them into a poetic tapestry, and I wrote music to go with that.”
In conjunction with spoken word, photo montages, and film, Carter and her group’s music is expected to
take the audience on a historical journey to celebrate Black Bottom and other Black American communities before the neighborhoods were destroyed – the late 1950s to early ’60s – to make way for urban renewal projects. Carter’s group of musicians consists of Brandon McCune (piano), Chris Lightcap (bass), her husband Alvester Garnett (drums), and native Detroiter Carla Cook (vocals).
Born and raised on Detroit’s west side – Grand St., between Linwood and Lawton before her family moved to a home near W. 7 Mile Rd. and Livernois – Carter began taking violin lessons at four years old.
Through elementary, middle, and high school, Carter continued playing the violin while appreciating the music of Motown Records and the many great jazz musicians living and playing in Detroit.
After graduating from Cass Tech High School, Carter continued her music education at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston before transferring to Oakland University in Michigan to earn a bachelor’s degree in music in 1985.
In 1989, Carter became an original member of Straight Ahead, an all-female Detroit-based jazz ensemble. She ultimately moved to New York and was a much-in-demand musician on The Big Apple’s elite jazz scene. In 1995, Carter recorded her first album as a leader, titled Regina Carter; 10 more albums have followed, the latest of which is Swing States – Harmony in the Background, released in 2020.
While Carter has been called one of the world’s premier jazz violinists, she has also been lauded for her musical work in R&B, Latin, classical, blues, country, pop, and African music. In addition to working with such jazz legends as Max Roach, Ray Brown, Kenny Barron, James Carter, Arturo O’Farrill, and Eddie Palmieri, among others, Carter has recorded or performed with Mary J. Blige, Billy Joel, Dolly Parton, and more. One of her most memorable recordings, said Carter, was performing with a string ensemble on Aretha Franklin’s hit single, A Rose is Still a Rose, written and produced by Lauryn Hill.
Nevertheless, earlier this year, The National Endowment for the Arts honored Carter’s achievements in
jazz by presenting her with the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship Award.
“I was completely blown away when I got the phone call that I was nominated,” said the three-time Grammy-nominee, MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient, and winner of numerous jazz publications’ polls for best jazz violinist. “It’s the highest and most prestigious award a jazz artist can receive in the United States. And receiving it was extra special because the other two jazz artists awarded the 2023 NEA Jazz Masters Award were saxophonist Kenny Garrett and drummer Louis Hayes; both are native Detroiters.”
As Carter, the former long-time Artist in Residence at the Oakland University School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, prepares for her headlining performance at the Detroit Jazz Festival, she spoke about future musical endeavors, including continuing to serve on the faculty of New Jersey City University and the Manhattan School of Music, recording a new album, and pursuing opportunities to score television, movie, and documentary soundtracks.
Carter said she would also love to record and perform with the legendary award-winning pianist, recording artist, and film composer Patrice Rushin.
“I’ve been a huge fan of Patrice Rushin since I first heard her play piano on a Jean Luc Ponty record many years ago,” said Carter. “We are going to make that happen! She is actually writing a piece for piano and violin for me to perform at the Library of Congress, but I will be performing it with Xavier Davis, who usually plays piano with me. But, yeah, I really want to record or perform with Patrice.”
However, for now, Carter, who resides in New Jersey with her husband/drummer Alvester Garnett, is ecstatic to bring her talents back home for the Detroit Jazz Festival.
“I don’t have my parents anymore, but the whole city of Detroit is my family,” she said. “I’m still a Detroiter, and that’s what I tell people wherever I perform.”
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