Biography
Cindy Blackman Santana, who functions as drummer, vocalist, and composer, earned her greatest visibility among pop listeners via an extended association with Lenny Kravitz and through her roles as drummer, composer, and collaborator beside spouse Carlos Santana. Her playing approach emphasizes fluidity and command while favoring nuance, color, and soul rather than sheer power. Yet Blackman Santana also maintains a longstanding presence in jazz, having accumulated more than 100 studio sessions together with an equally extensive history of live performances. Her first recording session occurred alongside Wallace Roney on the 1987 Muse release Intuition. She then secured a solo contract with the same imprint and delivered Arcane, featuring Kenny Garrett and Buster Williams, in 1988. Over the years Blackman Santana has collaborated with musicians that include Jacky Terrasson, Pharoah Sanders, Angela Bofill, Hugh Masekela, Joss Stone, and Lucky Peterson. Her catalog as a leader now exceeds a dozen albums. During 1992, the same year she entered Kravitz’s circle, she put out Code Red. She served as Kravitz’s touring drummer and appeared in the video clips for the singles “Are You Gonna Go My Way” and “American Woman.” That association with his road ensemble lasted more than ten years, followed by a one-year return in the mid-aughts. While employed by Kravitz she persisted in issuing jazz albums under her own name, maintaining a schedule of tours and session dates. Three well-received HighNote projects appeared during this period, the last being 2001’s Someday…. The 2004 album Music for the New Millennium presented an electric perspective on funky post-bop, performed with saxophonist JD Allen and keyboardist Carlton Holmes. Prior to entering the Santana organization her final date as leader was the 2010 fusion recording Another Lifetime, a tribute to mentor and central influence Tony Williams and his Lifetime ensemble. Blackman Santana first performed with Carlos Santana in 2010 after the two had been seeing each other for several years. They wed that December and she became an official member of his band in late 2014.
Born in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1959, Cindy Blackman grew up in Connecticut within a household filled with music. Her mother and grandmother performed classical repertoire while an uncle played vibraphone. Drawn to rhythm as soon as she could walk, she requested drums at age three and finally received a toy set at seven. She attended the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, where her father’s record collection sparked an interest in jazz. After absorbing the work of Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins, and Louis Hayes she committed herself fully to the jazz idiom and acquired her first professional drum kit at fourteen.
At sixteen she witnessed Tony Williams in concert and adopted him as her principal model. Williams’s four-limb independence and simultaneous function as both timekeeper and soloist convinced her that this was the proper integration of a drummer inside a jazz ensemble. Following high school she studied at Berklee College of Music under Alan Dawson, who had also taught Williams. A fellow student secured her an engagement with the Drifters, prompting her departure from Berklee after three semesters in 1982 and her relocation to New York City. For a period she earned a living as a street performer while studying drummers in clubs, among them Al Foster, Billy Hart, and Jack DeJohnette. She also encountered Art Blakey, who served as mentor and close friend.
In 1984 Blackman was featured on trumpeter Ted Curson’s WKCR-FM program “Jazz Stars of the Future.” Three years later her initial compositions appeared on Wallace Roney’s Verses, after which she joined his ensemble. An A&R representative from Muse who heard her studio work with Roney offered a recording contract, resulting in the 1988 leader debut Arcane. That date included Roney, saxophonist Kenny Garrett, bassists Buster Williams and Clarence Seay, and pianist Larry Willis. Her profile rose, and while still performing with Roney she began accepting additional bandstand opportunities. The 1991 release Trio + Two documented a collaboration with guitarist David Fiuczynski and bassist Santi Debriano, augmented by conguero Jerry Gonzalez and alto saxophonist Greg Osby. In 1992 she issued Code Red on Muse. The regard she had earned among fellow musicians outweighed dismissive remarks from some critics and patrons regarding a female drummer with an Afro leading a band; she learned early to disregard such commentary, remarking, “… they don’t pay my mortgage.” Her sidemen on that recording comprised pianist Kenny Barron, saxophonist Steve Coleman, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, and trumpeter Roney.
A 1993 transcontinental telephone exchange led to an invitation to work with Kravitz in Los Angeles; during the call she played drums over the line, prompting an immediate request that she fly west. She departed the following morning and, intending only a short visit, remained for weeks, appearing in the “Are You Gonna Go My Way” video and joining the touring band. Because Kravitz typically handled drumming on his own recordings, she continued as his road drummer until 2004.
Throughout that extended affiliation she sustained an active schedule as a jazz leader. The 1994 post-bop trio album Telepathy featured saxophonist Antoine Roney, pianist Jacky Terrasson, and bassist Clarence Seay and contained eight original compositions out of eleven tracks. She participated in the loose collective Grand Central assembled by Ravi Coltrane for three albums issued between 1993 and 1995, including Tenor Conclave with saxophonist Craig Handy, pianist Billy Childs, and bassist Dwayne Burno. As a leader she released The Oracle in 1996, employing Gary Bartz, Ron Carter, and Barron. She expanded her rock credentials on the various-artists tribute Black Night: Deep Purple Tribute, contributing drums to “Smoke on the Water,” “Space Truckin’,” and “Stormbringer.” Additional appearances from that era include Patti LaBelle’s Flame (credited as Cindy Blackmond) and Sonny Simmons’s 1997 Warner debut American Jungle, which also featured bassist Reggie Workman.
Blackman signed with HighNote in 1998 and issued In the Now, again with Carter, Coltrane, and Terrasson. The album garnered strong reviews and secured headlining engagements in New York and along the East Coast. She rejoined Roney for his 1999 release No Job Too Big or Small and performed with Russell Gunn on Love Requiem. That same year 32 Jazz compiled A Lil’ Somethin’, Somethin’. Works on Canvas, her second HighNote album, appeared in 2000 with pianist and keyboardist Carlton Holmes, bassist George Mitchell, and guest tenor JD Allen. She also participated on George Benson’s Absolute Benson and Eddie Allen’s Summer Days that year. Her final HighNote project, Someday…, arrived in 2001 with the same core group plus Allen throughout; it received uniformly favorable notices while she continued touring with Kravitz and recording with Joss Stone on the all-star Soul Sessions and its 2004 follow-up Mind, Body & Soul. After departing Kravitz’s employ in 2004 to concentrate on jazz, she released the widely praised double-length electric album Music for the New Millennium with her established quartet.
Between 2005 and 2010 she performed and recorded with Lucky Peterson’s studio and touring ensembles on three projects that took her around the globe. During this time she met Carlos Santana at a music festival; the two formed a relationship that soon became romantic. She also appeared on guitarist Mike Stern’s 2009 album Big Neighborhood. In 2010 she issued her last leader recording for several years, the stylistically wide-ranging Another Lifetime, her initial tribute to mentor Tony Williams. The project replicated the instrumentation of the original Tony Williams Lifetime band by featuring Mike Stern and Vernon Reid on guitars plus organist Doug Carn, while also employing Holmes, saxophonist Joe Lovano, and keyboardist Patrice Rushen. That summer she substituted for drummer Dennis Chambers at a Santana festival appearance; the guitarist proposed afterward, and the couple married in December.
In 2012 Blackman Santana, together with Reid, John Medeski, and former Lifetime and Cream bassist and vocalist Jack Bruce, recorded the second Williams tribute, Spectrum Road. She supplied vocals on “Where,” a composition by Lifetime guitarist John McLaughlin that had earlier appeared instrumentally on Another Lifetime. She performed at the 2011 Montreux Festival during the reunion of Carlos Santana and McLaughlin, whose 1973 live album Love Devotion Surrender was being revisited, and she assisted with the sound mix for the accompanying video documentary.
Blackman Santana joined the Santana band for two tracks on the 2014 Latin-rock fusion release Corazon, which reached the charts and included guests Wayne Shorter, Juanes, Ziggy Marley, Lila Downs, Gloria Estefan, Romeo Santos, and others. That year she also recorded on Bruce’s Silver Rails and pianist Rodney Kendrick’s The Colors of Rhythm. She resumed touring with Kravitz through 2015 before committing full-time to the Santana organization.
In 2017 the Santana band and the Isley Brothers issued the collaborative album Power of Peace, which charted inside the upper half of the Billboard 200 and on the R&B lists. Over the next two years her contributions to the Santana sound introduced greater rhythmic intricacy and jazz inflections, audible on the single “Lovers from Another Time,” the EP In Search of Mona Lisa, and the album Africa Speaks featuring Spanish vocalist Concha Buika; Blackman Santana also created the cover artwork.
September 2020 saw Blackman Santana return as a bandleader with the stylistically expansive Give the Drummer Some on Copperline, her thirteenth studio album. The seventeen-track collection was tracked across three years, with Narada Michael Walden producing the majority of the material and the drummer together with her husband overseeing the remainder. The music encompassed fusion, jazz-funk, R&B, rock, blues, Latin, and African elements. Its roster of guests included Carlos Santana, McLaughlin, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, and Reid on guitars, along with much of the Santana horn section and other notable players. In addition to her drumming, Blackman Santana sang lead on ten selections, among them John Lennon’s “Imagine” and the original “You Don’t Want to Break My Heart.”
Born in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1959, Cindy Blackman grew up in Connecticut within a household filled with music. Her mother and grandmother performed classical repertoire while an uncle played vibraphone. Drawn to rhythm as soon as she could walk, she requested drums at age three and finally received a toy set at seven. She attended the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, where her father’s record collection sparked an interest in jazz. After absorbing the work of Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins, and Louis Hayes she committed herself fully to the jazz idiom and acquired her first professional drum kit at fourteen.
At sixteen she witnessed Tony Williams in concert and adopted him as her principal model. Williams’s four-limb independence and simultaneous function as both timekeeper and soloist convinced her that this was the proper integration of a drummer inside a jazz ensemble. Following high school she studied at Berklee College of Music under Alan Dawson, who had also taught Williams. A fellow student secured her an engagement with the Drifters, prompting her departure from Berklee after three semesters in 1982 and her relocation to New York City. For a period she earned a living as a street performer while studying drummers in clubs, among them Al Foster, Billy Hart, and Jack DeJohnette. She also encountered Art Blakey, who served as mentor and close friend.
In 1984 Blackman was featured on trumpeter Ted Curson’s WKCR-FM program “Jazz Stars of the Future.” Three years later her initial compositions appeared on Wallace Roney’s Verses, after which she joined his ensemble. An A&R representative from Muse who heard her studio work with Roney offered a recording contract, resulting in the 1988 leader debut Arcane. That date included Roney, saxophonist Kenny Garrett, bassists Buster Williams and Clarence Seay, and pianist Larry Willis. Her profile rose, and while still performing with Roney she began accepting additional bandstand opportunities. The 1991 release Trio + Two documented a collaboration with guitarist David Fiuczynski and bassist Santi Debriano, augmented by conguero Jerry Gonzalez and alto saxophonist Greg Osby. In 1992 she issued Code Red on Muse. The regard she had earned among fellow musicians outweighed dismissive remarks from some critics and patrons regarding a female drummer with an Afro leading a band; she learned early to disregard such commentary, remarking, “… they don’t pay my mortgage.” Her sidemen on that recording comprised pianist Kenny Barron, saxophonist Steve Coleman, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, and trumpeter Roney.
A 1993 transcontinental telephone exchange led to an invitation to work with Kravitz in Los Angeles; during the call she played drums over the line, prompting an immediate request that she fly west. She departed the following morning and, intending only a short visit, remained for weeks, appearing in the “Are You Gonna Go My Way” video and joining the touring band. Because Kravitz typically handled drumming on his own recordings, she continued as his road drummer until 2004.
Throughout that extended affiliation she sustained an active schedule as a jazz leader. The 1994 post-bop trio album Telepathy featured saxophonist Antoine Roney, pianist Jacky Terrasson, and bassist Clarence Seay and contained eight original compositions out of eleven tracks. She participated in the loose collective Grand Central assembled by Ravi Coltrane for three albums issued between 1993 and 1995, including Tenor Conclave with saxophonist Craig Handy, pianist Billy Childs, and bassist Dwayne Burno. As a leader she released The Oracle in 1996, employing Gary Bartz, Ron Carter, and Barron. She expanded her rock credentials on the various-artists tribute Black Night: Deep Purple Tribute, contributing drums to “Smoke on the Water,” “Space Truckin’,” and “Stormbringer.” Additional appearances from that era include Patti LaBelle’s Flame (credited as Cindy Blackmond) and Sonny Simmons’s 1997 Warner debut American Jungle, which also featured bassist Reggie Workman.
Blackman signed with HighNote in 1998 and issued In the Now, again with Carter, Coltrane, and Terrasson. The album garnered strong reviews and secured headlining engagements in New York and along the East Coast. She rejoined Roney for his 1999 release No Job Too Big or Small and performed with Russell Gunn on Love Requiem. That same year 32 Jazz compiled A Lil’ Somethin’, Somethin’. Works on Canvas, her second HighNote album, appeared in 2000 with pianist and keyboardist Carlton Holmes, bassist George Mitchell, and guest tenor JD Allen. She also participated on George Benson’s Absolute Benson and Eddie Allen’s Summer Days that year. Her final HighNote project, Someday…, arrived in 2001 with the same core group plus Allen throughout; it received uniformly favorable notices while she continued touring with Kravitz and recording with Joss Stone on the all-star Soul Sessions and its 2004 follow-up Mind, Body & Soul. After departing Kravitz’s employ in 2004 to concentrate on jazz, she released the widely praised double-length electric album Music for the New Millennium with her established quartet.
Between 2005 and 2010 she performed and recorded with Lucky Peterson’s studio and touring ensembles on three projects that took her around the globe. During this time she met Carlos Santana at a music festival; the two formed a relationship that soon became romantic. She also appeared on guitarist Mike Stern’s 2009 album Big Neighborhood. In 2010 she issued her last leader recording for several years, the stylistically wide-ranging Another Lifetime, her initial tribute to mentor Tony Williams. The project replicated the instrumentation of the original Tony Williams Lifetime band by featuring Mike Stern and Vernon Reid on guitars plus organist Doug Carn, while also employing Holmes, saxophonist Joe Lovano, and keyboardist Patrice Rushen. That summer she substituted for drummer Dennis Chambers at a Santana festival appearance; the guitarist proposed afterward, and the couple married in December.
In 2012 Blackman Santana, together with Reid, John Medeski, and former Lifetime and Cream bassist and vocalist Jack Bruce, recorded the second Williams tribute, Spectrum Road. She supplied vocals on “Where,” a composition by Lifetime guitarist John McLaughlin that had earlier appeared instrumentally on Another Lifetime. She performed at the 2011 Montreux Festival during the reunion of Carlos Santana and McLaughlin, whose 1973 live album Love Devotion Surrender was being revisited, and she assisted with the sound mix for the accompanying video documentary.
Blackman Santana joined the Santana band for two tracks on the 2014 Latin-rock fusion release Corazon, which reached the charts and included guests Wayne Shorter, Juanes, Ziggy Marley, Lila Downs, Gloria Estefan, Romeo Santos, and others. That year she also recorded on Bruce’s Silver Rails and pianist Rodney Kendrick’s The Colors of Rhythm. She resumed touring with Kravitz through 2015 before committing full-time to the Santana organization.
In 2017 the Santana band and the Isley Brothers issued the collaborative album Power of Peace, which charted inside the upper half of the Billboard 200 and on the R&B lists. Over the next two years her contributions to the Santana sound introduced greater rhythmic intricacy and jazz inflections, audible on the single “Lovers from Another Time,” the EP In Search of Mona Lisa, and the album Africa Speaks featuring Spanish vocalist Concha Buika; Blackman Santana also created the cover artwork.
September 2020 saw Blackman Santana return as a bandleader with the stylistically expansive Give the Drummer Some on Copperline, her thirteenth studio album. The seventeen-track collection was tracked across three years, with Narada Michael Walden producing the majority of the material and the drummer together with her husband overseeing the remainder. The music encompassed fusion, jazz-funk, R&B, rock, blues, Latin, and African elements. Its roster of guests included Carlos Santana, McLaughlin, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, and Reid on guitars, along with much of the Santana horn section and other notable players. In addition to her drumming, Blackman Santana sang lead on ten selections, among them John Lennon’s “Imagine” and the original “You Don’t Want to Break My Heart.”
Albums
Singles
