Herlin Riley
Drums
69 age
February 15, 1957 Birthday
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. Birthplace
www.herlinriley.com Website
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About
Herlin Riley is a jazz drummer, bandleader, and composer rooted in the New Orleans tradition. A member of the Lastie musical dynasty, he began his career in the early 1980s with Ahmad Jamal's group, recording albums including Digital Works and Rossiter Road during a five-year tenure. In 1988, he joined Wynton Marsalis's quintet and subsequently the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, where he served for approximately seventeen years. He played a central role in developing the drum parts for Marsalis's Blood on the Fields, the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. His albums as leader include Watch What You're Doing, Cream of the Crescent, New Direction, Perpetual Optimism, and the 2024 releases What It Means and Hittin' It. He received a Grammy nomination for his work on Ambrose Akinmusire's Owl Song. He has taught at Northwestern University, the Juilliard School, and the University of New Orleans.
Trivia
Riley's grandfather Frank Lastie received his first music training at the Colored Waif's Home for Boys around 1913, where he played drums alongside the young Louis Armstrong. Riley co-authored New Orleans Jazz and Second Line Drumming with Johnny Vidacovich in 1995, a comprehensive guide to the city's percussion traditions. He and Wynton Marsalis unknowingly played together as children in Danny Barker's Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, a fact confirmed years later by a photograph showing both boys in the trumpet section.
Early Life
Herlin Riley was born on February 15, 1957, in New Orleans, Louisiana, into the Lastie musical dynasty. His mother, Betty Lastie, was a pianist and gospel singer, and his uncles Melvin, David, and Walter Lastie performed as the Lastie Brothers Combo. His grandfather taught him rhythm at the family table using butter knives, and Riley began playing drums at age three, sitting beside his grandfather in church and taking over the drum chair during services. He joined Danny Barker's Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band as a youth, immersing himself in New Orleans street parade and brass band traditions. At Carver High School he studied trumpet under the influence of jazz educator Alvin Batiste's residency program. He attended Southern University in Baton Rouge on a trumpet scholarship, where he returned to drums as his primary instrument. He left to support his young family while working professional gigs across New Orleans.
Herlin Riley Solos
2001
Drums solo - Cherokee - 2001
4/4 swing in B♭ major at 328 BPM