HERLIN RILEY (Wed, 11/11/26)

“The Groove Master”, Herlin Riley is widely considered one of the best drummers in any genre of music performing today. 

The longtime drummer for the legendary Ahmad Jamal and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra now leads two groups, his quintet and the New Orleans Groove Masters featuring himself, Jason Marsalis, and Shannon Powell.

Herlin’s most recent album, Perpetual Optimism, reunites the quintet of rising stars that Riley assembled for his Mack Avenue Records debut, New Direction. Since the release of that acclaimed album, all four of Riley’s bandmates – trumpeter Bruce Harris, saxophonist Godwin Louis, pianist Emmet Cohen, and bassist Russell Hall – have been making major waves across the modern jazz scene, attesting to the master drummer’s Art Blakey-like ear for talent and sage musical guidance.

Herlin Riley’s source of strength comes from his faith in God, his wife of four decades, and his family of five children and 10 grandchildren; his lifelong home in New Orleans, the creative community that surrounds it, and his positive approach to life and music. His roots in the church are also vital, shining through in the congregational claps that help establish the celebratory spirit that is showcased in the album opener “Rush Hour.”

He also relies on his musical family, including his long-established ties with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Riley’s connection to the Marsalis dynasty traces back a generation earlier, to family patriarch and fellow lifelong New Orleanian Ellis Marsalis. It was while performing with Ellis at the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in a trio with bassist Reginald Veal that Riley first caught the ear of Wynton, who invited both members of his father’s rhythm section to join him, launching a vital relationship that’s now lasted more than three decades. Riley pays homage to his mentor on the closing track of Perpetual Optimism, the funky arrangement of Ellis Marsalis’ composition “Twelve’s It.” In the quintet’s lively rendition, the tune is not just a cover but a tribute, as Riley intones a short ode to passing the torch that refers to the elder Marsalis as “a great musician who taught a whole lot of fellows.”

Another Crescent City icon, the late singer, pianist, songwriter, and producer Allen Toussaint, was the motivator behind Riley’s other vocal turn on the album, a gritty take on Willie Dixon’s blues classic “Wang Dang Doodle.” Toussaint stopped in to hear Riley play at a New Orleans club and heard the drummer’s 5/4 arrangement of the familiar standard. “He was really impressed,” Riley recalls. “He said, ‘Wow, man, I’ve heard ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ a thousand times, but I’ve never heard it performed in 5 before. You should record that.’ A few months later, he passed away, so I recorded the tune to pay homage to the wishes of the great Allen Toussaint.”

Though he conveys vivid emotion in his voice, Riley stops short of calling himself a singer. His willingness to step to the mic comes from advice he was given by New Orleans vocal great Germaine Bazzle. “She’s a very elegant and regal lady, but when she’s performing, she scats, rolls her shoulders, dances, and really engages in the music with honesty and passion,” says Riley. When he asked her how she reconciled those two extremes, Bazzle told him, “’ You have to allow yourself to become emotionally naked when you’re on the bandstand.’ When she said that, a light bulb went off in my head. I’m not a singer, but I just do what I do, and I have the audacity to be uninhibited.”