Spotlight Shifts to a Prodigal Talent at Le Cafe

Most people can’t remember when they lost their two front teeth. Terri Lyne Carrington can never forget. Scores of newspaper and magazine profiles written about the 24-year-old drummer remind her that at age 7--because of the natural and, for most kids, insignificant, loss of two baby teeth--she gave up the saxophone and took up the drums.

One year later, 8-year-old Terri Lyne was going to jazz clubs and sitting in on jam sessions--on her bio, it’s called her time of “paying dues.”

By the time she was 12, she’d played with or met almost every living jazz great. She’d appeared in numerous articles and on TV with Buddy Rich on “To Tell the Truth.” She’d become the youngest member of the Boston Musicians Union. And she’d been awarded a lifetime scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

What’s it like to have your life mapped out before you finish junior high? “No big deal,” she says now.

A lifetime in the spotlight has made Carrington, who appears this week at Le Cafe, wary of speaking to the press. She audibly winces over the phone when reports are brought up of a bitter period in her life--at age 18, when she’d felt being a woman and black was a double liability to her career. “When you start young,” she says, “you make a lot of quotes and statements that get blown out of proportion. Then you grow up.”

She’s just come out with a new album called “Real Life Story,” and she’s got a new job, as drummer for the “Arsenio Hall Show.” Her reputation is starting to have less to do with her age and more with her talent. On “Real Life Story,” for instance, she not only played drums, but composed and sang as well. She also attracted an all-star roster of players, including Patrice Rushen, Grover Washington Jr., Wayne Shorter, Carlos Santana, Keith Jones and several other top musicians.

Tuesday and Wednesday at Le Cafe in Sherman Oaks, Carrington will appear with Rushen and Charlie Haden, and they won’t play anything from the new album. It will just be friends jamming and having a good time.

Terri Lyne Carrington appears with Patrice Rushen, Charlie Haden and other guests at 9:15 and 11:15 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at Le Cafe, 14633 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. For information, call (818) 986-2662.