Biography

Kendrick Scott is a technically proficient and intuitive modern jazz drummer, composer, arranger, and bandleader with a bent toward lyrical, imaginative post-bop. Steeped in the lineage of Roy Haynes, Tony Williams, and Elvin Jones, he leads the Kendrick Scott Oracle and has worked live and in studio with a host of top-shelf jazz stars. Scott's Oracle debuted with 2007's self-released The Source. They cut Conviction for Concord and signed to Blue Note for 2015's Derrick Hodge-produced We Are the Drum. The band's A Wall Becomes a Bridge appeared in 2019. Scott changed his approach on 2023's Corridors, recording in a trio with saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers. Born in Houston, Texas in 1980, Scott grew up in a musical family who encouraged his interest in drumming from a young age. A member of his church and junior high school music ensembles, Scott eventually attended a performing arts high school and later the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Since graduating from Berklee in 2003, he has performed with a variety of name artists including the Jazz Crusaders, guitarist Pat Metheny, saxophonists Joe Lovano and Kenny Garrett, vocalist Dianne Reeves, and trumpeter Terence Blanchard. He released his debut album with his Oracle group on World Culture Music in 2006. In 2007 he performed on Blanchard's landmark score for director Spike Lee's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) and continued to work with vocalist Gretchen Parlato. Scott signed to Concord in 2012 and Conviction, his sophomore effort with Oracle, appeared on the label in March of 2013. It was produced by Derrick Hodge of the Robert Glasper Experiment. In 2015, after signing with Blue Note, Kendrick Scott & the Oracle issued We Are the Drum, that included a guest appearance by Grammy-winning vocalist Lizz Wright. Four years and many tours later, the drummer returned with his sophomore Blue Note date, A Wall Becomes a Bridge, a 12-song cycle about personal responsibility and overcoming obstacles. Again produced by Hodge, the set featured turntablist Jahi Sundance as a sixth member of the Oracle and was released in early April of 2019. Scott, like virtually all musicians, was sidelined during the pandemic. He used the opportunity to compose, shifting his area of concentration from inward statements to thoughts projected outward in shared experiences with everyone else in the world during the COVID pandemic. He returned to recording in 2023 and released Corridors on Blue Note in March. Rather than work with Oracle, the set placed the drummer in a trio setting with saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers The nine-track set included eight originals and a cover of Bobby Hutcherson's "Isn’t This My Sound Around Me?" ~ Matt Collar