Biography
Kendrick Scott stands out as a jazz drummer whose technical mastery and intuitive touch shape a lyrical, forward-looking post-bop sensibility as composer, arranger, and leader. Drawing from the lineage of Roy Haynes, Tony Williams, and Elvin Jones, he directs the Kendrick Scott Oracle while maintaining an active schedule of live and studio work alongside leading jazz figures. The Oracle made its first appearance on record with the 2007 self-released The Source. The group later recorded Conviction for Concord before moving to Blue Note for the Derrick Hodge-produced We Are the Drum in 2015. In 2019 the band issued A Wall Becomes a Bridge. Scott adopted a fresh format for 2023’s Corridors, cutting the album as a trio alongside saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers.
Born in Houston, Texas in 1980, Scott was raised in a musical household that nurtured his early interest in drumming. Participation in church and junior-high ensembles led him to a performing-arts high school and eventually to Berklee College of Music in Boston. After completing his studies at Berklee in 2003, he appeared with an array of prominent artists that includes the Jazz Crusaders, guitarist Pat Metheny, saxophonists Joe Lovano and Kenny Garrett, vocalist Dianne Reeves, and trumpeter Terence Blanchard. His first album with the Oracle surfaced on World Culture Music in 2006. That same year he contributed to Blanchard’s score for Spike Lee’s A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) and began an ongoing association with vocalist Gretchen Parlato. Scott joined the Concord roster in 2012; Conviction, his second Oracle recording, arrived on the label in March 2013 under Derrick Hodge’s production. Following his move to Blue Note, Kendrick Scott & the Oracle released We Are the Drum in 2015, which featured a guest vocal from Grammy-winning Lizz Wright. Four years later the drummer delivered his second Blue Note album, A Wall Becomes a Bridge, a twelve-song meditation on personal accountability and resilience that again enlisted Hodge as producer, added turntablist Jahi Sundance as a sixth Oracle member, and reached stores in early April 2019.
Like countless other musicians, Scott found his activities curtailed by the pandemic. He used the period to write, redirecting his focus from introspective themes toward music that addressed collective experience during COVID. He resumed recording in 2023 with Corridors, issued by Blue Note in March. Instead of convening the Oracle, the nine-track collection placed him in a trio with Walter Smith III and Reuben Rogers, presenting eight original pieces alongside a reading of Bobby Hutcherson’s “Isn’t This My Sound Around Me?”
Born in Houston, Texas in 1980, Scott was raised in a musical household that nurtured his early interest in drumming. Participation in church and junior-high ensembles led him to a performing-arts high school and eventually to Berklee College of Music in Boston. After completing his studies at Berklee in 2003, he appeared with an array of prominent artists that includes the Jazz Crusaders, guitarist Pat Metheny, saxophonists Joe Lovano and Kenny Garrett, vocalist Dianne Reeves, and trumpeter Terence Blanchard. His first album with the Oracle surfaced on World Culture Music in 2006. That same year he contributed to Blanchard’s score for Spike Lee’s A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) and began an ongoing association with vocalist Gretchen Parlato. Scott joined the Concord roster in 2012; Conviction, his second Oracle recording, arrived on the label in March 2013 under Derrick Hodge’s production. Following his move to Blue Note, Kendrick Scott & the Oracle released We Are the Drum in 2015, which featured a guest vocal from Grammy-winning Lizz Wright. Four years later the drummer delivered his second Blue Note album, A Wall Becomes a Bridge, a twelve-song meditation on personal accountability and resilience that again enlisted Hodge as producer, added turntablist Jahi Sundance as a sixth Oracle member, and reached stores in early April 2019.
Like countless other musicians, Scott found his activities curtailed by the pandemic. He used the period to write, redirecting his focus from introspective themes toward music that addressed collective experience during COVID. He resumed recording in 2023 with Corridors, issued by Blue Note in March. Instead of convening the Oracle, the nine-track collection placed him in a trio with Walter Smith III and Reuben Rogers, presenting eight original pieces alongside a reading of Bobby Hutcherson’s “Isn’t This My Sound Around Me?”
Albums
Corridors
2023
Three for Three
2017
While We're Still Young
2016
Reverence
2009
Encounters
2009
Promise
2009
Singles
