(upbeat music) - And we are celebrating Women's History Month celebrating women in music.

And my guest today is one of Detroit's finest drummers, Mrs. Gayelynn McKinney, welcome to the show.

= Thank you thank you.

Thank you for having me.

- Absolutely.

Now Gayelynn, you come from a musical family.

Your father is the legendary Harold McKinney.

Your mother is a well-noted singer.

Your siblings are musicians, trumpeters, singers, you name it.

So you had no choice.

I had no choice.

- But to become a musician.

You started playing drums at the age of two.

- I got my first official lesson at nine from Danny, God bless his soul, he's not here either anymore, but he also started teaching me officially like rudiments and things like that at nine.

- So what made you, because you were playing the clarinet and saxophone, you were great.

You already beat out the first chair.

You challenged the first chair saxophonist within your first month of playing and won.

What made you stick with the drums?

- Nobody knew I played drums until one particular day, the drums were out and I said oh.

I went over there and I started playing on the snare and doing some stuff.

Everybody in the class went and they was looking at me like, "Oh my God, she's playing the drums."

And clearly I obviously knew what I was doing.

So that was very surprising to everyone.

And so after that day, I was standing at the bus stop on my way home from school and this little girl was looking at me like, and I was like, what's wrong with you?

And she said, "You were playing the drums."

And I said yeah.

And she said, "Well you're a girl."

I said, "Yeah, I know that."

And she said, "But you were playing the drums?"

I said yeah.

She said, "Well you're not supposed to be playing the drums.

The drums are for boys."

And that really hurt my feelings.

I was like, well, I'm a girl.

I like to play the drums.

Well, my father came home from New York one day.

He had been doing some music there and he didn't know how I was feeling.

He just knew, he never knew I was thinking about quitting.

And so he just came in all excited.

"Guess what?"

I said, "What?"

"I saw another little girl playing the drums."

I said, "Really?"

He said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She was playing with Clark Terry and she's about eight years old."

So I'm 10 and she's eight.

And that drummer was Terri Lyne Carrington.

And so that was all I needed.

I just needed to know that there was some other girl playing this instrument because I never saw any other girl playing the instrument when I was coming up playing the drums.

- I didn't think that you would face flack, for lack of a better word, but catching the heat from girls from playing drums.

So did you find that you were more welcomed by the guys or?

- It was just the one little girl really that said something about it.

The boys just would, you know, I think they were in shock.

They were too shocked to even say anything.

So as I got in my older years though, that's when I really started to see from guys that they weren't quite that happy that I was playing the drums.

Especially during like jam sessions.

- Please help me welcome Straight Ahead.

(upbeat music) - Right after college, you joined a group called Straight Ahead, an all female jazz ensemble.

How did that band come about?

- That band came about thanks to a woman named Mickey Braden who was trying to find some musicians to perform at this club called Bert's Place.

And it used to be on Jefferson right across from Heart Plaza.

And she couldn't find anybody, everybody was busy.

So she called me and she said, "Hey Gayelynn, I'm trying to put a band together for Bert's Place for a Monday night gig."

And Monday is not a good night, but I guess words started circulating that there was an all female jazz group playing.

And like I said, we weren't tiptoeing through the tulips.

We was hitting.

So by the next couple of weeks, a couple weeks later, we had like 20 people come in the club.

By the end of the second month, there was a line going outside of Bert's Place.

- On a Monday.

- On a Monday from people wanting to see this all female group.

(upbeat music) - Last year in 2022, you launched a festival, Women Who Drum.

Tell us about that festival and the mission and purpose of Women Who Drum.

- So I started this thing because I played at Baker's Keyboard Lounge on Fridays and Saturdays with the great Ralph Armstrong and Gerard Gibbs.

And I've been doing this now since February of '21.

And do you know that almost every weekend, one night out of that weekend, sometimes two nights out of that weekend, somebody says, "Wow, you're the first woman drummer I've ever seen."

That's when the idea came to me.

I said, well I'm gonna start this festival because people here need to see and know that there's more than just me out here doing this.

For one thing, I love performing, I love playing for people especially who appreciate it.

And so I feel obligated to give them a show.

If you come to see me, I feel obligated to give you a show.

(upbeat music) You came to see me perform, so I'm gonna give you something back.

So that you gonna leave happy because you gonna know I put my all into it, you know?

(applause)