Lenny White

Though somewhat unheralded in pop culture, Lenny White is truly one of the great drummers of the past half-century. As a mere teenager, he was recruited to play on Miles Davis’s iconic Bitches Brew album, and it set the stage for a career both as part of all-time great bands and as a solo performer.

Following Bitches Brew, White joined fellow Davis sideman Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, and became a key part of the development of jazz fusion music in the 1970s. After RTF split in the late 70s, White changed directions and formed the R&B band with bassist Barry Johnson, guitarist Eddie Martinez and keyboard player Skip Anderson, along with singer Lynn Davis and a handful of other female vocalists.

Twennynine broke out with aplomb in the fall of 1979 with Best of Friends, a tasty mix of R&B and funk, produced by White with Earth Wind & Fire's Larry Dunn. The disc shot onto the R&B charts, led by the Parliament-influenced top 5 single, "Peanut Butter." That was the high water mark for Twennynine's chart success, though the band issued two more Elektra albums before splitting in the early 80s.

White went on to become one of the most sought-after drummers in the jazz world, seemingly working with every great jazz artist over the next two decades. He also produced several notable albums for other artists, including the now classic 1982 tribute disc, Echoes of An Era. He has also recorded a dozen and a half solo albums which have touched on various elements of jazz and R&B, as well as a few reunions of Return to Forever.

White is a music instructor at the Steinhardt campus of New York University.

By Chris Rizik 

Photo By Tore Sætre - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,