REVIEW: Terri Lyne Carrington, Christie Dashiell’s energetic delivery of ‘We Insist! 2025’ earns the artists a standing ovation

With drums front and center, the performance of “We Insist! 2025” by Terri Lyne Carrington and featuring Christie Dashiell wasted no time in getting its message to an audience at Penn State.

“We Insist!” was a jazz album originally created by Max Roach, Abby Lincoln and Oscar Brown Jr. in 1961. It served as a rallying cry against oppression, which is an issue still prevalent in modern society. Carrington and Dashiell’s 2025 rendition of the album keeps these themes throughout.

Their performance started out with dissonant guitar tones and almost haunting vocals, but as soon as Carrington kicked in on the drums, the tone of the night was set. The audience’s heads were bopping, and Carrington’s beat was unrelenting throughout the whole show. Members of the band would take breaks occasionally as a guitar or trumpet solo took center stage, but those drumsticks never left Carrington’s hands.

Dashiell roused the audience into participating in a stomp-clap beat she called “boom chick,” which made experiencing the album live all the more immersive.

The band’s final number included Dashiell listing all the things that freedom should be, or at least what freedom means in the modern day. My favorite line, and one that got lots of laughs from the audience, was “Freedom is binge-watching ‘Bridgerton’ for the third time.”

From serious to light-hearted, the core of the album’s themes were introduced alongside the beat of Carrington’s drum: the freedom to be, the freedom to live and the freedom to sing.

In all the bleakness of the world around us, the work of Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell on reviving this album of hope was inspiring to hear live. Music has the power to inspire change and move us to our core, and I believe this performance proved that. Its effect on the audience was equally apparent, as the band received a well-deserved standing ovation.

Ariana J. Lee is a marketing communications intern at the Center for the Performing Arts.