The proliferation of world-class female jazz instrumentalists has, predictably, led to a rise in relationships during which each musicians are elite players. But there isn’t any pair as powerful as drummer Darrell Green and Camille Thurman, a sensational singer and a saxophonist who shatters the glass ceiling.
Of course, every marriage is a world of its own, but Oakland-raised Green, who has thrived on the New York scene for greater than twenty years, and Thurman, a native New Yorker who grew up in Queens, have overcome the challenges that include being more peripatetic Jazz lifestyle with special grace and magnificence.
The Darrell Green Trio with special guest Camille Thurman plays a series of performances this weekend, including October twenty fifth on the SJZ Break Room and October twenty sixth as a part of the “Adventures In Jazz” series on the San Ramon Library. They'll end the run with a day concert at Piedmont Company on Oct. 27, and all three shows will feature “two of my favorite players in the Bay Area, bassist Ron Belcher and pianist Matt Clark,” Green said.
“We have a lot of material to draw from because we have multiple projects,” he added. “There’s a Burt Bacharach project, a Horace Silver project, originals, arrangements of standards and a Max Roach/Abbey Lincoln tribute,” based on the legendary drummer’s support work for the civil rights movement along with his singer wife.
Thurman's appearance as a special guest with Green's trio reflects the incontrovertible fact that she is back within the Bay Area February 15-16 to perform 4 shows exclusively under her own name on the SFJAZZ Center's Joe Henderson Lab. For this engagement, she is working with a quintet featuring Green and rising trumpet star Wallace Roney Jr. (son of the late great trumpeter Wallace Roney and the late piano genius Geri Allen).
The couple recently sat side by side on a video call at home in New York City and talked about how their relationship grew almost imperceptibly out of a friendship formed through late-night hangouts at jam sessions and clubs around the town. He made a robust first impression on and off the bandstand when Thurman and her best friend, saxophonist Yunie Mojica, ventured into the West Village club Smalls in 2012, “and the session was somewhat OK,” she said. “We were hanging out and we saw this well-dressed guy get on the drums and it went from mediocre to whoa! He turned that sucker around.
The women were used to being ignored by the boys or mistaken for singers despite the fact that they were carrying their saxophones, and were much more impressed when Green passed their table.
“He said he was so happy to see us with our horns and if you needed anything let him know,” Thurman said. “We tried to be tough, like we had to be on guard, and he was really nice to us. That was strange.”
They met many times on the crime scene and have become close friends. Far more established than Thurman once they met – Green was already working with guitar maestro Russell Malone – he helped her find her way, which was sometimes difficult given her extensive skill set. Eventually the friendship blossomed into romance and so they began planning most of their performances together.
They were on a State Department-sponsored tour in West Africa in early 2018 when she received a call from saxophonist Walter Blanding Jr., a 25-year member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He was desirous about taking a yr off, and when he talked to Wynton Marsalis a few alternative, “we thought you would be the best person,” she recalled.
“Oh man. I think we have all of this stuff booked out until the end of the year. I went to Darrell and said, “We have to talk.” I was just asked to work at Lincoln Center for about a year, starting in the fall season. “His first response was, 'You should try this.' We can do it clear up.'”
She accepted the gig and a one-year engagement changed into two, making her the primary woman to hitch the orchestra as a full-time member. She didn't have much big band experience after 30 years of playing together, let alone in a “well-oiled engine that moves and breathes together and ears paying attention to every little detail,” she said.
She expected the challenge and accepted it. “I love situations that get me going as a player,” Thurman said. What she didn't expect was “the impact it would have.” Young women from everywhere in the world are messaging me and pouring out their hearts. I spotted this was a lot greater than simply attempting to play the music.”
DARRELL GREEN TRIO
Appearance with Camille Thurman
When and where: October 25, 8 p.m. on the SJZ Break Room in San Jose; $27; sanjosejazz.org; 7:30 p.m., Oct. 26, at San Ramon Library, $33-$36; sanramonjazz.org; October 27, 5 p.m. at Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland; $30-35; piedmontpiano.com
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