Candid Records Artists Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell Celebrate Grammy Nomination for Best Vocal Jazz Album

WE INSIST 2025! Album Cover

Young Terri Lyne Carrington with Jazz Icon Max Roach

Christie Dashiell and Terri Lyne Carrington

Max Roach was an innovator that brought the drums to the forefront in jazz. He was a leader and helped me to see the importance of being a total musician because he composed and arranged.”

— Terri Lyne Carrington, NEA Jazz Master and four-time Grammy Award Winner

LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, December 30, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Candid Records jazz recording artists Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell celebrate their 2025 protest album, WE INSIST 2025!, with a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Jazz Album. The album was released during the 65th anniversary year of WE INSIST! MAX ROACH'S FREEDOM NOW SUITE, the seminal recording written by Roach and Oscar Brown, Jr., featuring Abbey Lincoln, which was originally released in December 1960, also on Candid Records, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, a timely release during the Civil Rights era.

Its historic relevance is echoed today in Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell’s reimagining of WE INSIST 2025! while also addressing current social justice concerns.

Released at a moment of heightened social and political urgency in 2025, WE INSIST 2025! stands as one of the most timely and meaningful albums to be recognized this year. More than a tribute, the project reaffirms the album’s original call to action, resonating powerfully with contemporary struggles for justice, freedom, and collective voice. In this context, the Grammy nomination serves not only as artistic recognition, but as an acknowledgement of the album’s cultural relevance and enduring message – one that remains as necessary now as it was 65 years ago.

Carrington and Dashiell’s critically acclaimed June 13, 2025, album release received raved reviews and was named in several media outlets as one of the Best Jazz Albums of the Year, both nationally and internationally.

Carrington, an NEA Jazz Master and four-time Grammy Award winner, is an internationally renowned drummer, composer, bandleader, producer, and author. She is also the founder of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice and serves as its artistic director at Berklee College of Music.

Christie Dashiell is a Grammy-nominated vocalist and composer. She is also a professor at Howard University.

Discussing her goals for the WE INSIST 2025! project, Terri Lyne Carrington stated: “We Insist is a call to action. It’s a project of community spirit and collectivism with an ensemble of some of the best creative musicians and artists in our field, most of whom are signed to Candid Records.”

The nomination includes collaborators Milena Casado, Morgan Guerin, Simon Moullier and Matthew Stevens – all Candid Records artists, alongside Weedie Braimah. Each represents a new generation of bold, forward-thinking voices in jazz, underscoring Terri Lyne Carrington’s long-standing commitment to mentoring and collaborating with artists who will carry the torch of the genre forward. It is especially fitting that these rising artists, all part of the Candid family, have contributed to the reimaging of WE INSIST! MAX ROACH'S FREEDOM NOW SUITE, one of the label’s most seminal and historically significant recordings. Their collective presence bridges past and present, honoring Candid’s legacy while asserting its continued role in shaping the future of jazz.

“Max Roach has always been an important person and influence in my life,” says Carrington, who started her professional career at ten years old.

“He was an innovator that brought the drums to the forefront in jazz – away from having just an accompanying role. He was a leader by nature – not just in music – and helped me to see the importance of being a total musician because he composed, arranged and dreamed up big ideas.”

Carrington continues: “Though he tried to produce an album for me when I was a teenager, the major labels were not embracing the idea of him producing a 16-year-old female jazz drummer. But his belief in me inspired me to persevere, be resourceful, and believe in myself.”

“Christie Dashiell was a perfect collaborator on this project,” Carrington concludes. “She covers the spectrum of Black music, and I thought that was especially important for this record—not just to sound like a jazz record, but to also show Black music as a throughline, and Christie was the best person to do that. She’s really special, and I’m so happy she stepped into the role of Abbey Lincoln.”

“We Insist means many things,” says Dashiell, who has been mentored by Carrington. “It’s a declaration that we won’t back down. That I—that we—insist on our freedoms. We insist that we have our rightful place in society. We insist that people won’t fight our freedoms; instead, they will fight with us in that declaration. The WE INSIST! recording was timely when Max and Abbey recorded it, and it’s just as timely now in 2025.”

The project enjoyed several successful promotional initiatives. Jazz radio host and programmer Mark Ruffin of SiriusXM’s Real Jazz presented a Town Hall in celebration of the album and Carrington’s 50th anniversary in music.

Additionally, BBC host Giles Peterson celebrated the album by playing various tracks—including the single, “Tears For Johannesburg”—on Radio 6 Music.

The WE INSIST 2025! social media campaign included “I Insist” messages from recording artists, musicians, and creatives from the jazz community and beyond, with videos from Chaka Khan, Dianne Reeves, Peter Erskine, Dr. Frank Roberts, Toshi Reagon, T.S. Monk, Antonio Sánchez, Willard Jenkins, Johnathan Blake, and numerous others.

Dashiell and Carrington launched their national and international tour, which included engagements in Japan at the Blue Note Tokyo and New York City Parks’ SummerStage at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, in partnership with Jazzmobile’s Summerfest, among others.

Additional tour dates for next year will be announced in the coming weeks.

For more information on Terri Lyne Carrington, visit www.terrilynecarrington.com.

For information on Christie Dashiell, visit www.christiedashiell.com.

Gwendolyn Quinn
Gwendolyn Quinn Pubic Relations
+1 917-769-7808
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