Sound of Vinyl

Drummer and composer Kendrick Scott presents Corridors, a striking new album that finds the Houston-born drummer and composer paring down to a trio featuring saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers. The anticipated follow-up to A Wall Becomes A Bridge, Scott’s much-lauded 2019 release with his band Oracle, Corridors features eight original compositions and one new arrangement of a beloved tune from the Bobby Hutcherson canon. Born during lockdown, the record focuses on posing outward questions instead of inward contemplation. “I was thinking to myself, ‘How has life changed for everyone?’” says Scott, who began the writing process with a deceptively benign inquiry: What are people doing inside their homes? “From that question, the theme of corridors came to me,” he says, noting that the metaphor was in part inspired by a long corridor in his New York City apartment. “When you think of corridors, it really implies movement, going from one place to the next. But yet now everyone is stagnated inside them.