Charleston Jazz Heroes
The JJA proudly hails drummer Quentin Baxter and trumpeter Charlton Singleton, the dynamic duo at the core of the Grammy Award-winning quintet Ranky Tanky, as Charleston Jazz Heroes for their ambitious, tireless promotion and support of the local and regional musics of the South Carolina Lowcountry.
For over 30 years, these gentlemen have been friends, bandmates, educators and speakers emphasizing the enduring musical riches of the Gullah cultural community. Both were born in Charleston; both showed an early aptitude for music and both have profound family connections to the region’s unique African-American enclave that forged a distinctive culture from African traditions and shared experience as once-enslaved people.
First meeting in the late 1990s in a record store, Baxter and Singleton began their musical collaboration as a duet, growing into the locally popular jazz group Gradual Lean when they joined guitarist Clay Ross and bassist Kevin Hamilton. Though they had disbanded to pursue individual goals, the four regrouped at Ross’s suggestion in the mid 20-teens, enlisting vocalist Quiana Parler to record their updated-roots debut Ranky Tanky (Gullah for “get funky”) in 2017. Their second album, Good Time won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Music Album and third, Live at the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, won another in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category.
“We updated Gullah, but in a respectful way,” says Singleton. “Our mission has always been to enlighten and educate folks about this music, about how important it is. Sometimes, people will say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that was Gullah.’ One of the rewards of playing this music is getting that kind of response.”
Singleton has been an educator and has continually nurtured the local jazz scene since 2002, when he became the band director at the Charleston School of the Arts middle school, a post he held for five years. The next year he founded the Charlton Singleton Orchestra, which in 2008 morphed into the 18-piece Charleston Jazz Orchestra, for which he’s been conductor and artistic director. In 2015 he was named artist-in-residence at the downtown Gaillard Center; upon stepping down in 2019, he headed up its Summer Youth Jazz Orchestra Camp as Artist in Residence Emeritus.
Baxter has also taught, for more than 20 years as professor of Jazz Percussion at the College of Charleston. In 2012 he formed Baxter Music Enterprises, which co-founded The Mezz (now closed), a bar where he curated and frequently performed. He serves as musical director of the Charleston Jazz Initiative (CJI), a research project exploring the history and legacy of the Carolina’s African-American musicians; a founding board member of the Jazz Artists of Charleston (JAC); a board member of both the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and Engaging Creative Minds, a producer of numerous benefit concerts/auctions for Avery Research Center, Jenkins Orphanage, Halsey Institute, Spoleto USA, among several other artistic organizations — and singer Réne Marie’s featured drummer.
Currently involved in the creation of a Charleston art hub for music education, performance and production, Baxter says, “These are exciting times. I’m honored to be in a position to be able to perform and present this music with such distinguished artists and to create learning opportunities for young people.”
Bringing fresh energy and brighter light to inform the world about their native region’s lesser-known but oh so enriching African-American culture has long been the top priority of these musicians, whose efforts have previously been acknowledged with a South Carolina Governor’s Award for their service to the arts. The JJA is pleased to join in the praise chorus for Quentin Baxter and Charleton Singleton, Jazz Heroes.
—Don Palmer
writer, JJA board member
