Tia Fuller and Shamie Fuller-Royston have spent their careers building legacies on separate stages, one as a Grammy-nominated saxophonist and Berklee professor who toured the world with Beyoncé, the other as a pianist, composer and master educator whose playing the New York Times once called rhythmically vanguardist. But their newest project brings them back to where it all started. Dynasty, their debut duo album, is a tribute to their parents, the Fuller Sound family band they grew up watching rehearse in the basement, and the mother they recently lost. Rolling Out Music sat down with both sisters to talk about the music, the memories and what it means to document a dynasty.
Fuller Sound started with your parents. What did it feel like to reclaim that name and make it your own dynasty?
Tia: Dynasty is definitely an extension of our lineage. Our parents led a family band called Fuller Sound. Our mother Elthopia Fuller was the vocalist and our dad is a bass player. When we were young, we were always going to their rehearsals and their gigs. Fast forward to Dynasty, the album really came about to celebrate and pay homage to both of our parents. We unfortunately lost our mother a couple of years ago, and our dad now lives with me. I just thought, what better time for my sister and I to reconvene and celebrate our lineage, our heritage, our family. And not only looking back, but moving forward. A lot of times when we perform, even though the album is a duo, Shamie’s son Colby Royston is in our band, so the dynasty continues with the next generation.
Tia, this is the first album where you sing. What took so long, and what finally made you say yes to your voice?
Ever since I was a child, my parents would be in the basement rehearsing and I would be in my canopy bed singing into my tape recorder, just singing the songs my mom was singing. She was the vocalist in the family. We had a performance where I was singing Body and Soul from one of my former albums, Angelic Warrior, and Shamie said, Tia, you sound just like Mom. During our mother’s transition, I became more unapologetic about it because it is a way I am able to connect with her. I am really doing it to pay homage to Mom.
How did losing your mom shape the music on this album, and what does it mean to document her spirit in sound?
Shamie: She has always been a big part of Fuller Sound. It was really important for us to pay homage to both of our parents, and there was a lot of emotion in producing this album because it brought us back to when we were children, hearing my mom sing around the house and going to my parents’ performances. A lot of the album is based on the roots of us when we were children. The standards are standards that either my mom sung or my dad played in the group, and the original compositions were geared toward the spirit of both our parents. Every time we perform this duo album, it has deeper meaning than just putting a record together. It is the roots of where we came from.
Shamie, the New York Times called you a rhythmic vanguardist. What does that mean to you, and how do you describe your own sound?
I play like a percussionist, I guess. I play piano of course, but I am very harmonic and melodic with what I play while really listening to the rhythmic aspect. My dad being a bass player, I would always hear the bass lines, and that became part of the rhythmic side. I always heard bass and percussion together, so I translate that into my instrument, which can be all three. It can be harmonic, it can be melodic, I can walk bass lines, I can be like a percussionist. I think when they quoted that, they heard the rhythmic style in my playing. I just try to encompass everything I have learned over the years across different styles of music.
Tia, you went from leading jazz ensembles to touring the world with Beyoncé to voicing a character through saxophone in Seoul. How has each chapter shaped who you are as an artist?
I just turned 50 about a month ago and I reflect on my journey a lot. I went to Spelman College, a historically all-Black female school, then I was part of Beyoncé’s band, and I have had this lineage of being around strong women, especially women of color. That has been a subscript that really helped uplift me during challenging times in my career. Every tier has really allowed me to diversify, kind of like diversifying a portfolio. Different situations have equipped me with the ability to dig into different bags depending on the opportunities that come about. When I got the Beyoncé gig, our musical director Kim Burrell would always say play for Kate, meaning serve the song. There was something about pulling from these different bags that I have been blessed to experience. Now that Shamie and I are both educators, I am able to give back. I do big productions at Berklee covering Prince, Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, and I would not have had that knowledge without the Beyoncé gig. Having the sisterhood has really been helpful throughout all of it.
Recording this album as just two people in a room, how did the intimacy of that setting change how you played?
Shamie: We definitely had to focus on each other. With a group you have bass and drums backing you up, but we basically had to really listen to each other and figure out how we could interact and make it sound as full as possible with just piano and sax. The beauty of it is that because we are sisters, I know my sister’s playing and she knows mine. We can go back and forth melodically because we kind of know how we each move within a song. It was beautiful to do it together, but it was also very exposed. There are parts where we had to make sure that the empty space a full rhythm section would normally fill was being addressed through different melodic ideas.
Tia: Being comfortable with the space was another big adjustment. Playing with a quartet or a larger group, we are used to all the space being filled with drums or bass. It was about allowing ourselves to rest in the space and letting it exist rather than feeling obligated to fill it up.
Shamie, you composed Ode to Bach after hearing a melody on Sesame Street as a child. How much of your childhood lives inside this album?
A lot of it. That song in particular came from a Sesame Street melody they did with the ABC song, and when I got to college I realized it was a Bach Prelude and Fugue. As a child I would always hear everything in TV shows and movies and pick it out on the piano. That song was written because it was something I heard when I was young, before I even knew anything about piano. But overall the whole premise of the album brought me back to my roots. My dad and Tia and I would play at a restaurant as a trio when I was 18 or 19, playing jazz standards. Jazz was all my dad played, so I was always singing bass lines and picking out melodies. I picked out Giant Steps as a kid just because I thought it was a cool melody. All of the music on this album represents our childhood. It has a deeper root than any other project I have done.
Jazz has historically been a male-dominated space. What has it meant to build careers and document a legacy as two Black women in this art form?
Tia: It has been transformational, but it has also been an extension of who we are and where we come from. It was never, oh, I want to be a woman out here playing music. That was never our directive or our motivation. From around 18 to 25 or 26, I was just focused on being the best musician possible, practicing eight hours a day. It was not until people started coming up to me asking how it feels to be a woman playing music, or saying things like you sound like a guy, that the awareness set in. Playing this music in a patriarchal society and profession was brought to us from the outside. I have taken it upon myself to make sure my mentorship is strong with other young women, because there are real obstacles we face that young men do not have to think about. I also try to educate young men on how to deconstruct patriarchal terminology in the jazz world. Terry Lynn Carrington’s Jazz and Gender Justice program asks the question, what would jazz sound like without patriarchy, and that resonates deeply with me. The music is always what drives us, but we are representatives of women and women of color, and we do not take that lightly. We use it as a tool to empower.
You are both educators at the highest level. How does teaching change the way you create and perform?
Shamie: They are all kind of synonymous to me. Whatever I play, I extend to my students in terms of just trying to be great at your instrument and making music, not just playing notes off the page. My expectations are always high because I am out here performing, and I really believe students can be stretched to the fullness of how they play. Teaching also opens my ears up more.
To follow the Fuller sisters on their journey visit Tia Fuller on Instagram and Shamie Fuller-Royston on Facebook and stream Dynasty now on all major streaming platforms.