Photo by Julia Cartwright
Shelley Carrol was always going to be a musician.
His mother was a celebrated educator with multiple degrees in music and the arts. His three older siblings performed together in a family singing group that he was too young to join. He grew up in Houston, singing in the city’s Boys Choir, church and school. During the holidays, he and his siblings would perform a talent show for each other in front of the Christmas tree.
“There were musical instruments around my house all the time,” he says. “We all took piano lessons from Mrs. Smith, the same lady who taught my mother when she was a child.”
Music is second to breathing in Carrol’s life.
“I saw Grover Washington Jr. playing the saxophone on TV and immediately fell in love with it,” he says. “When I entered junior high, the band did not have any saxophones left so they gave me an oboe. I remember crying to my mother.”
He finally got to pick up an alto saxophone and follow Washington’s lead in high school. By his senior year, Carrol was winning national music awards. He started college at Texas Southern University before transferring to UNT.
In 1986, he was offered a seat in the highly prestigious Duke Ellington orchestra, where he entered as the youngest performer. Thirty-four years later, Carrol is one of the oldest in the orchestra.
Between then and now, he moved to Dallas, and built an eclectic resume working with artists such as Kool & The Gang, Sheryl Crow and Pink Floyd. Carrol runs a nonprofit with his wife called the Infinite Arts Movement, which brings all forms of art to underserved communities in North Texas. He’s still making an impact in his hometown of Houston. This year marked the sixth annual Houston Jazz Festival, an event that Carrol helped to organize.
“To this day, I am both a student and a teacher,” he says. “Jazz musicians teach each other constantly. This unspoken understanding that the learning never stops is the beauty of the art form to me.”
As a teacher, Carrol shares lessons on the craft at Booker T. Washington.
“I have fallen in love with teaching young musicians this art form,” he says.
As a student, he still finds time to fuel his musical spirit. You’ll often find him at Revelers Hall, riffing off his bandmates.
“It can always be a new experience if you stay open to the music, listen and let it breathe,” Carrol says. “It has been quite a beautiful journey for me exploring creativity daily.”
No matter the musical niche that Carrol inhabits on a given day, his collaborative spirit never ceases — “Andrew Griffith on the drums, Jonathan Fisher on the bass, Todd Parsnow on the guitar, Michael Palmer on the piano, Lyle West on the bass and the great Bobby Sparks on piano.”
On a recent November evening, that band found themselves playing a set at Revelers Hall into the early hours of the morning. Many years removed from singing for his family in front of the Christmas tree and being enamored with
Grover Washington Jr, Carrol’s dedication to the arts has remained the same.
“My family upbringing definitely influenced my love and passion for music. I was nurtured by many great teachers and musicians,” he says. “Music is what I was meant to do.”
