Blanchard, Terence 1962–
Terence Blanchard 1962–
Jazz musician
Terence Blanchard is a musician of many talents. His skill as a trumpeter made him one of the leading jazz voices of the last 20 years, but he has also developed as a writer, composing scores for Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and Malcolm X. Although Blanchard would be “one of the first ’Young Lions,’” noted Scott Yanow in All Music Guide, “to develop his own sound …,” some critics have opined that writing scores has distracted him from his commitment to jazz. Blanchard, however, inherited a strong work ethic from his father, allowing him to devote ample time to each of his talents. “I could easily make more money just writing films, but I’m still out on the road,” he told Ted Panken in Down Beat. “I love playing music, I love playing jazz and it will never be my choice to give that up.”
Blanchard was born on March 13, 1962, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Joseph Oliver Blanchard, was an insurance salesman who loved opera, and sang part-time in the 1930s and 1940s. Joseph Blanchard idolized early jazz greats like Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines, and encouraged his son to become a musician. Terence Blanchard began playing piano at five. He enjoyed clowning around, and learned to play television theme songs like Batman, but his father pushed him to take the music seriously. “If you’re going to do this music thing,’” Blanchard later recalled his father saying in Essence, “’you’re going to do it right and take some lessons.’” Blanchard decided to change instruments, however, after a jazz band visited his grade school: he loved the sound of the trumpet.
In the early 1970s Blanchard attended St. Augustine, a black Catholic school, and played in the marching band. He grew disappointed in the music program, however, and quit to enroll in public school. Although the abrupt change put his future music career at risk, he signed up at a public school that allowed him to attend the New Orleans Center of Creative Arts (NOCCA). Blanchard studied with Ellis Marsalis, the father of Wynton and Branford Marsalis, at NOCCA. He immersed himself in the music of Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, and John Coltrane, and met a number of future musical partners including Donald Harrison. In addition to his studies at NOCCA, Blanchard expanded his musical palette playing Dixieland on Sunday afternoons,
At a Glance…
Born on March 13, 1962, in New Orleans, LA; son of Joseph Oliver Blanchard. Education: Rutgers, classical music major, 1980-82.
Career: New Orleans Civic Orchestra, trumpet player, late 1970s; Blue Room night club, trumpet player, fate 1970s; Lionel Hampton’s Band, trumpet player, 1980-82; Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, trumpet player, 1982-86; Quintet featuring Donald Harrison, coleader and trumpeter, 1986-90; Terence Blanchard Quintet, founder, leader, and trumpeter, 1990–; Movie soundtrack scorer, 1991–; Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, artistic director, 2000-.
Selected awards; Artist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, Jazz Trumpeter of the Year, Downbeat Magazine, 2000; Nominee, Best Original Score for 25th Hour, Golden Globes, 2002; numerous Grammy nominations.
Addresses: Record company —Blue Note, 304 Park Avenue South, 3rd Floor, New York, New York 10010.
and playing with the New Orleans Civic Orchestra.
In 1980 Blanchard enrolled in Rutgers and studied classical and jazz trumpet with William Fielder and band instruction with Paul Jeffrey. Thanks to Jeffrey, the young trumpeter began performing with veteran vibes player Lionel Hampton, a gig that extended a year and a half. In February of 1982, Wynton Marsalis recommended Blanchard to take his place with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, leading the young trumpeter to drop out of Rutgers to go on the road. His new education, however, was just beginning. Blakey encouraged the young trumpeter to abandon his imitative style and search for a distinctive approach. “I grew so much in just the first month…,” he told Panken. “Art made me understand that as long as I set my goals and worked toward them, I could do anything I wanted.”
Blanchard’s first foray into film came in 1988 when he was hired as a session musician on Spike Lee’s School Daze. Despite his skill as both a composer and a player, he had no immediate plans to start a career in scoring films. “I thought I’d be in my sixties by the time that happened to me,” Blanchard told Jazz Improv Magazine, “after I had two hundred recordings, and was on my death bed.” He returned to the set of Lee’s next film, Mo’ Better Blues, and impressed the director by composing and scoring a piece for the movie. This led Lee to choose the trumpeter to score Jungle Fever in 1991, but Blanchard worried that he lacked the experience necessary to write the soundtrack by himself. “I was scared to death,” he told Lisa Leigh Parney in the Christian Science Monitor. Not knowing where to turn, he called a mentor for advice. “Trust your ears,” his friend told him. “You know how to write. Do your job.” Blanchard relaxed, and soon found himself in great demand. He collaborated with Lee on eight other films including Malcolm X and 25th Hour, and also scored a number of other films including Sugar Hill, Eve’s Bayou, and Barber Shop.
Following Blanchard’s work with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, he reached a crisis in his growth as an artist. Although he believed that his interpretive skills were growing emotionally and musically, he discovered that his method of playing was preventing him from growing technically. “I kept hearing ideas in my head that I wanted to play but couldn’t execute, and that was very frustrating” he told Panken. “My bottom lip was rolled over my teeth and I was cutting my lip.” Determined to improve his embouchure, Blanchard took a two-year hiatus from playing, allowing time for his lip to heal and re-learning his technique. “Terence was willing to undergo two years of absolute misery for long-term gain,” Branford Marsalis told Panken. “For a professional working musician to decide to take a hit like that shows an enormous level of personal honesty.”
Blanchard remains one of the most creative musicians currently working on the contemporary jazz and film scenes, and has frequently been nominated for Golden Globe and Grammy awards. “Over the last five years,” wrote Jazz Improv Magazine, “Blanchard has matured from a vigorous young lion into an established artist…” In 2000 Downbeat readers chose him as the Jazz Artist and Trumpeter of the Year, while also choosing Wandering Moon as the Jazz Album of the Year. Similar praise greeted Bounce in 2003. “…Blanchard proves that he is the trumpet player, composer, and bandleader who is moving jazz…,” wrote Thorn Jurek in All Music Guide, “in new directions that encompass both a new look at Western musical systems and never leave the human heart out of the equation.” Besides his film and studio work, Blanchard is the artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute’s Master’s program and tours regularly. “Nothing,” he told Jazz Improv Magazine, “can beat being a jazz musician, playing a club, playing a concert.”
Selected works
Discography
New York Second Line, Concord, 1983.
Black Pearl, Columbia, 1988.
Malcolm X Jazz Suite, Columbia, 1992.
The Billie Holiday Songbook, Sony, 1993.
Wandering Moon, Columbia, 2000.
Bounce, Blue Note, 2003.
Film Scores
Jungle Fever, 1991.
Malcolm X, 1992.
Housesitter, 1992.
Sugar Hill, 1994.
Trial By Jury, 1994.
The Inkwell, 1994.
Backbeat, 1994.
Eve’s Bayou, 1997.
Barber Shop, 2002.
25th Hour, 2002.
Sources
Periodicals
Christian Science Monitor, June 15, 2001, p. 20.
Down Beat, December 3, 2000.
Essence, April 1, 2001, p. 76.
On-line
“Terence Blanchard,” All Music Guide, www.allmusic.com (December 15, 2003).
“Terence Blanchard,” Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (December 15, 2003).
“The Heart Speaks,” Jazz Improv, www.jazzimprov.com (December 15, 2003).
—Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.
Blanchard, Terence
Terence Blanchard
Trumpeter, composer
Terence Blanchard may be most widely known for his work composing music for director Spike Lee’s films, but his deepest love remains with his own jazz trumpeting. When Blanchard rearranged his score for Lee’s 1992 film, Malcolm X, into The Malcolm X Jazz Suite for his own quintet in 1993, Washington Post reviewer Geoffrey Himes called the album “extraordinary, landmark” and esteemed Blanchard as “[Wynton] Marsalis’s only real rival as a modern composer of jazz suites in the Ellington mode.” Then in 1994, Down Beat’s Michael Bourne deemed In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook Blanchard’s “most heartfelt album.” This flurry of success in the early to mid-1990s followed a steady rise from Blanchard’s New Orleans roots to his years starting in 1982 with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in New York and through his playing and recording in the late 1980s with fellow Jazz Messenger Donald Harrison.
In 1989 Blanchard’s career was well underway, but he met with a nearly critical crisis. The trumpeter had been mistakenly placing his lips over his teeth instead of in front of them in forming his embouchure, his physical connection to his instrument. This caused a lip injury that led to a one-year hiatus from the trumpet. Frustrated in the midst of growing success, Blanchard would have to relearn his fundamental technique in proper form after his lips had a chance to heal.
Gave Dad Credit
Blanchard made it through the ordeal and emerged a leader on the jazz scene. He credited his father with teaching him the patience and wherewithal to overcome deep frustrations in his career—both in retraining himself through his crisis and in maintaining his inspiration during some longer tours on the road. Joseph Oliver Blanchard instilled discipline and determination into his son at a young age. The elder Blanchard was an insurance company manager and part-time opera singer in New Orleans who maintained his passion for music despite a racial stigma that precluded him from singing full time.
When at age five the young Blanchard began picking up TV show themes such as Batman on his grandmother’s piano, Blanchard’s father brought a piano home and hired a teacher for his son. Then he watched him practice. “He would actually sit there while I practiced,” Terence recalled for Wayne K. Self in Down Beatin 1992. “He’d sit on the couch and listen until I got it straight. If I made a mistake, he would stop me and say, ‘Go back; go back. Do it again; you’ve got to get it right.’ I hated it; I hated it with a passion.”
For the Record…
Born March 13, 1962, in New Orleans, LA; son of Joseph Oliver Blanchard (insurance company manager and part-time opera singer). Education: Studied under Ellis Marsalis at New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA); studied under jazz trumpeter Paul Jeffrey and classical trumpeter Bill Fielder at Rutgers University, 1980-82.
Trumpet player with New Orleans Civic Orchestra, in Dixieland gigs, and with big bands at the Blue Room in New Orleans, late 1970s; with Lionel Hampton’s band, 1980-82; with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, 1982-86, as musical director, 1983-86; with Donald Harrison in a quintet, 1986-90; founder and leader of Terence Blanchard Quintet, beginning in 1990; performed concerts at Equitable Center, JVC Jazz Festival, New York, 1991; Orpheum Theater, New Orleans, and Jazz Tent, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, 1992; with Sonny Rollins, Carnegie Hall, 1993; as leader, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 1993; with Terence Blanchard Quintet, Village Vanguard, New York, 1993; and at Jazz Showcase, Chicago, 1994; has also played internationally; performed trumpet music for films; composer of soundtracks and music for films.
Addresses: Record company —Columbia Records, 51 West 52nd St., New York, NY 10019.
If his father introduced him to music and taught him aspects of character to stead him well in his art, then Blanchard’s experience with legendary teachers of jazz developed his love for the trumpet into a striking ability. First, Blanchard studied with Ellis Marsalis at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA). Ellis Marsalis, father of Branford and Wynton Marsalis, introduced the trumpeter to the sounds of Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Bird, and John Coltrane, all of whom would become influences on Blanchard’s playing. Meanwhile, Blanchard continued his classical studies and played around town—in the New Orleans Civic Orchestra, in Sunday afternoon Dixieland gigs, and subbing for a big band at the Blue Room.
Hooked Up With Hamp
In 1980 Blanchard went to New York and studied classical and jazz trumpet at Rutgers University on a scholarship. The head of the jazz program there, Paul Jeffrey, connected Blanchard with the Lionel Hampton band. Blanchard played on the road with Hamp on the weekends while a Rutgers student for two years. Then Wynton Marsalis called Blanchard and fellow NOCCA grad Donald Harrison about taking his place in Art Blakey’s band in New York. “We auditioned in the band at Fat Tuesday’s,” Blanchard told Michael Bourne of Down Beat. “One night we played a whole set while Wynton and Branford sat in the back. And then Art said, ‘You’re a Jazz Messenger now.’”
Blakey immediately urged Blanchard to develop his own style. “I used to come in and try to play like Miles Davis or Clifford Brown,” Blanchard told Scott Aiges of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “I remember I was playing ‘My Funny Valentine’ and he said, ‘Look, you got to stop doing that, man. You got to pick a ballad that you can make your own and work on your own style and your own sound. Miles did that already. He put his stamp on it.’” With that insistence, Blanchard first imagined himself as a jazz leader. “And when he said that it was like, damn, I wouldn’t even put my name in the same breath as Miles Davis or Clifford Brown, but he made me understand that I can have my own identity.” One year after joining Blakey’s band, Blanchard became musical director and had contributed some tunes of his own to the band’s repertoire.
Led Bands, Scored Films
After four years with Blakey’s band, Blanchard and Harrison set out in 1986 with their own quintet and recorded five albums, starting with New York Second Line in their first year. Blanchard had also worked on the soundtracks for the Spike Lee films School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and Mo’ Better Blues before breaking with Harrison and signing on to Columbia with his own quintet in 1990. Blanchard’s first two albums as a leader—Terence Blanchard, with Branford Marsalis and others in 1991, and Simply Stated in 1992—generated basically positive, although not glowing, reviews. Blanchard attributed that tepid recognition to logistical problems with his Columbia contract and to juggling studio schedules while working on Lee’s film Jungle Fever.
With his next album, The Malcolm X Jazz Suite, culled and translated from the best of his soundtrack for Lee’s film Malcolm X, Blanchard achieved broad and deep recognition for succeeding in a bold and ambitious project. A New York Times review by jazz writer K. Leander Williams included sympathetic comparisons to the legendary Duke Ellington. Both brought heightened force and energy to the extended suite form—a form which in 1943 with Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige Suite shifted jazz from a kind of popular music only to an art music as well. “Like the extended compositions of Ellington’s later years,” Williams wrote, “Mr. Blanchard’s suite has succeeded in creating music that, while illuminated by his players, is indelibly shaped by its composer.”
In the 1990s Blanchard remained as busy as ever. He continued to score soundtracks for Spike Lee movies, including 1994’s Crooklyn, and contributed to other film soundtracks, such as Sugar Hill, Inkwell, Trial by Jury, Housesitter, and BackBeat. Entertainment Weekly considered Blanchard central to a general resurgence of jazz composition for film. Meanwhile, Blanchard recorded another bold album, In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook, for Columbia in 1994. Blanchard’s deepest love remained with playing his trumpet, both in recording and especially live. “Writing for film is fun, but nothing can beat being a jazz musician, playing a club, playing a concert,” Blanchard was quoted as saying in Down Beat in 1994. “When I stood next to Sonny Rollins at Carnegie Hall last fall and listened to him play, that was it for me.… You could’ve shot me and killed me right there, and I would’ve been happy.”
Selected discography
(With Donald Harrison) New York Second Line, Concord Jazz, 1983.
(With Art Blakey) New York Scene, Concord Jazz, 1984.
(With Harrison) Discernment, Concord Jazz, 1986.
(With Harrison) Nascence, Columbia, 1986.
(With Blakey) Live at Kimball’s (recorded 1985), Concord Jazz, 1987.
(With Blakey) Blue Night (recorded 1985), Timeless, 1991.
Terence Blanchard, Columbia, 1991.
(With Blakey) Dr. Jekyle (recorded 1985), Evidence, 1992.
Simply Stated, Columbia, 1992.
(With Blakey) Hard Champion (recorded 1985), Evidence, 1992.
(With Blakey) New Year’s Eve at Sweet Basil (recorded 1985), Evidence, 1992.
(With Harrison and others) Fire Waltz (recorded 1986), Evidence, 1993.
The Malcolm X Jazz Suite, Columbia, 1993.
(With Harrison and others) Eric Dolphy and Booker Little Remembered Live at Sweet Basil (recorded 1986), Evidence, 1993.
In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook, Columbia, 1994.
Film soundtracks; composer
Jungle Fever, Motown, 1991.
Malcolm X, Columbia, 1992.
Crooklyn, 1994.
Film soundtracks; contributor
School Daze, EMI-Manhattan, 1988.
Do the Right Thing, Columbia, 1989.
Mo’ Better Blues, Columbia, 1990.
BackBeat.
Housesitter.
Sugar Hill.
Inkwell.
Trial by Jury.
Sources
Billboard, July 13, 1991; June 6, 1992.
Down Beat, August 1983; October 1991; August 1992; May 1994.
Entertainment Weekly, May 13, 1994.
Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1993.
New York Times, June 20, 1993.
Time, May 16, 1994.
Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), May 1, 1992.
Washington Post, October 1, 1993.
Additional information for this profile was provided by Columbia Records Media Department publicity materials.
—Nicholas Patti
Blanchard, Terence
Terence Blanchard
Trumpeter, composer
Terence Blanchard may be most widely known for his work composing music for director Spike Lee's films, but his deepest love remains with his own jazz trumpeting. When Blanchard rearranged his score for Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X into The Malcolm X Jazz Suite for his own quintet in 1993, Washington Post reviewer Geoffrey Himes called the album "extraordinary, landmark," and esteemed Blanchard as "[Wynton] Marsalis's only real rival as a modern composer of jazz suites in the Ellington mode." In 1994 Down Beat's Michael Bourne deemed In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook Blanchard's "most heartfelt album." This flurry of success in the early to mid-1990s followed a steady rise from Blanchard's New Orleans roots to his years starting in 1982 with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in New York and through his playing and recording in the late 1980s with fellow Jazz Messenger Donald Harrison.
In 1989 Blanchard's career was well underway, but he faced a critical crisis. The trumpeter had been mistakenly placing his lips over his teeth instead of in front of them in forming his embouchure, or physical connection to his instrument. This caused a lip injury that led to a one-year hiatus from playing the trumpet. Frustrated in the midst of growing success, Blanchard had to relearn his fundamental technique in proper form after his lips had a chance to heal.
A Father's Influence
Blanchard made it through the ordeal and emerged a leader on the jazz scene. He credited his father with teaching him the patience and wherewithal to overcome deep frustrations in his career, both in retraining himself after the injury and in maintaining his inspiration during some longer tours on the road. Joseph Oliver Blanchard instilled discipline and determination into his son at a young age. The elder Blanchard was an insurance company manager and part-time opera singer in New Orleans who maintained his passion for music despite the racial bias that precluded him from singing full time.
When at age five the young Blanchard began picking up TV show themes such as "Batman" on his grandmother's piano, Blanchard's father brought a piano home and hired a teacher for his son. Then he watched him practice. "He would actually sit there while I practiced," Terence recalled for Wayne K. Self in Down Beat. "He'd sit on the couch and listen until I got it straight. If I made a mistake, he would stop me and say, ‘Go back; go back. Do it again; you've got to get it right.’ I hated it; I hated it with a passion."
If his father introduced him to music and helped him mold aspects of his character, then Blanchard's experience with legendary teachers of jazz developed his love for the trumpet into a striking ability. First Blanchard studied with Ellis Marsalis at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA). Ellis Marsalis, father of Branford and Wynton Marsalis, introduced the trumpeter to the sounds of Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Charlie "Bird" Parker, and John Coltrane, all of whom would become influences on Blanchard's playing. Meanwhile, Blanchard continued his classical studies and played around town, in the New Orleans Civic Orchestra, in Sunday afternoon Dixieland gigs, and subbing for a big band at the Blue Room.
In 1980 Blanchard went to New York and studied classical and jazz trumpet at Rutgers University on a scholarship. The head of the jazz program there, Paul Jeffrey, connected Blanchard with the Lionel Hampton band. Blanchard played on the road with Hampton on weekends for two years, while he was a Rutgers student. Then Wynton Marsalis approached Blanchard and fellow NOCCA grad Donald Harrison about taking his place in Art Blakey's band in New York. "We auditioned in the band at Fat Tuesday's," Blanchard told Michael Bourne of Down Beat. "One night we played a whole set while Wynton and Branford sat in the back. And then Art said, ‘You're a Jazz Messenger now.’"
Coming Into His Own
Blakey immediately urged Blanchard to develop his own style. "I used to come in and try to play like Miles Davis or Clifford Brown," Blanchard told Scott Aiges of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "I remember I was playing ‘My Funny Valentine’ and he said, ‘Look, you got to stop doing that, man. You got to pick a ballad that you can make your own and work on your own style and your own sound. Miles did that already. He put his stamp on it.’" One year after joining Blakey's band, Blanchard became musical director and had contributed some tunes of his own to the band's repertoire.
After four years with Blakey's band, Blanchard and Harrison set out in 1986 to form their own quintet and recorded five albums, starting with New York Second Line in their first year. Blanchard had also worked on the soundtracks for the Spike Lee films School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and Mo' Better Blues before breaking with Harrison and signing on to Columbia with his own quintet in 1990. Blanchard's first two albums as a leader, Terence Blanchard, with Branford Marsalis and others in 1991, and Simply Stated in 1992, generated basically positive, although not glowing, reviews. Blanchard attributed the tepid recognition to logistical problems with his Columbia contract and to juggling studio schedules while working on Lee's film Jungle Fever.
With his album The Malcolm X Jazz Suite, culled and translated from the best of his soundtrack for Lee's film Malcolm X, Blanchard achieved broad and deep recognition for succeeding in a bold and ambitious project. A New York Times review by jazz writer K. Leander Williams included sympathetic comparisons to the legendary Duke Ellington. Both artists brought heightened force and energy to the extended suite form. This form, beginning in 1943 with Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige Suite, shifted jazz from a kind of popular music to an art music as well. "Like the extended compositions of Ellington's later years," Williams wrote, "Mr. Blanchard's suite has succeeded in creating music that, while illuminated by his players, is indelibly shaped by its composer."
For the Record …
Born on March 13, 1962, in New Orleans, LA; son of Joseph Oliver Blanchard (an insurance company manager and part-time opera singer). Education: Studied under Ellis Marsalis at New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA); studied under jazz trumpeter Paul Jeffrey and classical trumpeter Bill Fielder at Rutgers University, 1980-82.
Trumpet player with New Orleans Civic Orchestra, in Dixieland gigs, and with big bands at the Blue Room in New Orleans, late 1970s; with Lionel Hampton's band, 1980-82; with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, 1982-86, as musical director, 1983-86; with Donald Harrison in a quintet, 1986-90; founder and leader of Terence Blanchard Quintet, beginning 1990; performed concerts at Equitable Center, JVC Jazz Festival, New York, 1991; Orpheum Theater, New Orleans, and Jazz Tent, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, 1992; with Sonny Rollins, Carnegie Hall, 1993; as leader, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 1993; with Terence Blanchard Quintet, Village Vanguard, New York City, 1993; and at Jazz Showcase, Chicago, 1994; has also played internationally; performed trumpet music for films; composer of soundtracks and music for films, including Clockers: Original Orchestral Score, 1995; issued Wandering Moon, 2000, and Let's Get Lost, 2001; composed soundtrack for 25th Hour and Bounce, 2003; participated on McCoy Tyner's Grammy Award Winning Album Illuminations, 2004; issued Flow, 2005; recorded A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina), 2007.
Addresses: Record company—Columbia Records, 51 West 52nd St., New York, NY 10019, Web site: http://www.columbiarecords.com/.
In the 1990s Blanchard remained as busy as ever. He continued to score soundtracks for Spike Lee movies, including 1994's Crooklyn, and contributed to other film soundtracks, such as Sugar Hill, Inkwell, Trial by Jury, Housesitter, and BackBeat. EntertainmentWeekly considered Blanchard central to a general resurgence of jazz composition for film. Meanwhile, Blanchard recorded another bold album, In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook, for Columbia in 1994. Blanchard's deepest love remained with playing his trumpet, both in recording and especially live. "Writing for film is fun, but nothing can beat being a jazz musician, playing a club, playing a concert," Blanchard was quoted as saying in Down Beat. "When I stood next to Sonny Rollins at Carnegie Hall last fall and listened to him play, that was it for me. … You could've shot me and killed me right there, and I would've been happy."
Blanchard continued to record both solo projects and score movies at the turn of the millennium. In 2000 he issued Wandering Moon, an album that led Michael G. Nastos of All Music Guide to comment, "Trumpeter Blanchard has released some fine recordings in the '90s, but this one may be the best of them all, as he asserts himself as a composer of truly original modern jazz." In 2001 Blanchard completed Let's Get Lost, a tribute to songwriter Jimmy McHugh, a recording that relied on the talents of four female singers, Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, and Cassandra Wilson. Blanchard also continued to work with director Spike Lee, scoring the soundtrack for his 2002 movie 25th Hour.
A Musical Storm
In 2006 the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina assumed special meaning for Blanchard: he had been born in New Orleans, and his mother lost her home in the storm. The tragedy would also lead to one of his most deeply felt musical projects. When his long-time collaborator Lee heard the news, Blanchard recalled in the Santa Barbara Independent, "he got on the next plane from New York and came straight to my place. He knocked on the door and then, before he even said hello, he said that we had to make this film—that we had to let these people tell their stories." As a result, Blanchard recorded A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina), a moving tribute to the victims. "The music here will leave you in a melancholy, contemplative mood and definitely in awe of the talented musicians, composers, and arrangers who told A Tale of God's Will," wrote Paula Edelstein in All Music Guide.
Recalling his work on the soundtrack, and the magnitude of the New Orleans tragedy and its aftermath, Blanchard told the Santa Barbara Independent, "I had that aspect of the film in mind, that in the levees you see just everybody. In a strange way, now, I feel blessed, because this thing has gotten the best out of us as artists."
Selected discography
(With Donald Harrison) New York Second Line, Concord Jazz, 1983.
(With Art Blakey) New York Scene, Concord Jazz, 1984.
(With Harrison) Discernment, Concord Jazz, 1986.
(With Harrison) Nascence, Columbia, 1986.
(With Blakey) Live at Kimball's (recorded 1985), Concord Jazz, 1987.
(With Blakey) Blue Night (recorded 1985), Timeless, 1991.
Terence Blanchard, Columbia, 1991.
(With Blakey) Dr. Jekyle (recorded 1985), Evidence, 1992.
Simply Stated, Columbia, 1992.
(With Blakey) Hard Champion (recorded 1985), Evidence, 1992.
(With Blakey) New Year's Eve at Sweet Basil (recorded 1985), Evidence, 1992.
(With Harrison and others) Fire Waltz (recorded 1986), Evidence, 1993.
The Malcolm X Jazz Suite, Columbia, 1993.
(With Harrison and others) Eric Dolphy and Booker Little Remembered Live at Sweet Basil (recorded 1986), Evidence, 1993.
In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook, Columbia, 1994.
Clockers: Original Orchestral Score, Columbia, 1995.
Wandering Moon, Columbia, 2000.
Let's Get Lost, Sony, 2001.
25th Hour, Hollywood, 2003.
Bounce, Blue Note, 2003.
Flow, Blue Note, 2005.
A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina), Angel, 2007.
Film soundtracks
Do the Right Thing, Columbia, 1989.
Mo' Better Blues, Columbia, 1990.
Malcolm X, Columbia, 1992.
Inside Man, Varese Sarabande, 2006.
Sources
Periodicals
Billboard, July 13, 1991; June 6, 1992.
Down Beat, August 1983; October 1991; August 1992; May 1994.
Entertainment Weekly, May 13, 1994.
Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1993.
New York Times, June 20, 1993.
Time, May 16, 1994.
Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), May 1, 1992.
Washington Post, October 1, 1993.
Online
"An Interview with Terence Blanchard of the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra," Santa Barbara Independent,http://independent.com/news/2008/jan/10/interview-terenceblanchard-monterey-jazz-festival/, January 7, 2008.
"Terence Blanchard," All Music Guide,http://www.allmusic.com, January 7, 2008.
Other
Additional information for this profile was provided by Columbia Records Media Department publicity materials.
—Nicholas Patti and Ronald D Lankford, Jr.
Blanchard, Terence 1962–
Blanchard, Terence 1962–
PERSONAL
Full name, Terence Oliver Blanchard; born March 13, 1962, in New Orleans, LA; son of Joseph Oliver Blanchard (an insurance company manager and part-time opera singer); married, wife's name Robin; children: four, including Olivia Ray. Education: Studied at New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, 1978; attended Rutgers University, 1980–82.
Addresses: Agent—Wayne Fitterman, United Talent Agency, 9560 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 500, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. Manager—Burgess Management, 3225 Prytania St., New Orleans, LA 70115.
Career: Composer, trumpet player, band leader, conductor, orchestrator, recording artist, and actor. Trumpeter with New Orleans Civic Orchestra and with big bands at the Blue Room in New Orleans, late 1970s; appeared with Lionel Hampton Orchestra, 1980–82; Jazz Messengers (musical group), trumpeter, 1982–86, musical director, 1983–86; appeared with Donald Harrison in a quintet, 1986–90; Terence Blanchard Quintet, founder and leader, beginning 1990; performed with Terence Blanchard Group, Natural Spirit Orchestra, and New York Jazz Ensemble; concert performer in the United States and abroad. University of Southern California, artistic director of Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz Performance.
Awards, Honors: Grand Prix du Disque (France), 1984, for New York Second Line; Grammy Award nomination, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, best jazz instrumental performance by a group (with others), 1990, for Mo' Better Blues; Emmy Award nomination, best original score for a documentary, 1995, for The Promised Land; Grammy Award nomination, best Latin jazz performance, 1996, for The Heart Speaks; readers' choice for jazz artist of the year and trumpeter of the year, Downbeat, 2000; readers' choice for jazz album of the year, Downbeat, 2000, for Wandering Moon; Grammy Award nomination, best jazz instrumental solo, 2001, for "I Thought About You," Wandering Moon; Grammy Award nomination, best jazz instrumental solo, 2002, for "Lost in a Fog," Let's Get Lost; Golden Globe Award nomination, best original score for a motion picture, Golden Satellite Award nomination, International Press Academy, best original score, Sierra Award, Las Vegas Film Critics Society, best score, and World Soundtrack Award nomination, soundtrack composer of the year, all 2003, for 25th Hour; Black Reel Award nomination, best original score, 2005, for She Hate Me.
CREDITS
Film Work; Trumpet Player:
(With Natural Spirit Orchestra) School Daze, Columbia, 1988.
Do the Right Thing, MCA/Universal Pictures, 1989.
Mo' Better Blues, Universal, 1990.
(And leader of Big Band, and conductor of Malcolm X Orchestra) Malcolm X, Warner Bros., 1992.
Housesitter, 1992.
(With Terence Blanchard Quintet) Sugar Hill (also known as Harlem), Twentieth Century-Fox, 1994.
(And orchestrator) The Inkwell (also known as No Ordinary Summer), Buena Vista, 1994.
(With Terence Blanchard Quartet) Trial by Jury, Warner Bros., 1994.
Backbeat, 1994.
Soloist, Primal Fear, Paramount, 1996.
(And score producer and conductor) 4 Little Girls, Green Valley Films, 1997.
Soloist (and score conductor), Summer of Sam, Buena Vista, 1999.
Random Hearts, Columbia, 1999.
(And conductor) Bamboozled, New Line Cinema, 2000.
(And organist) Glitter, Twentieth Century-Fox, 2001.
Soloist, Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists, 2001.
(And conductor) Jim Brown All American, HBO Sports/40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 2002.
Soloist, The Salton Sea, Warner Bros., 2002.
Film Work; Other:
Conductor, Crooklyn, Universal, 1994.
Conductor, Clockers, Universal, 1995.
Score producer and conductor, Get On the Bus, Columbia, 1996.
Music arranger, "A Child with the Blues," Eve's Bayou, MCA/Universal, 1997.
Music conductor, Next Friday, New Line Cinema, 2000.
Orchestrator and conductor, Love & Basketball, New Line Cinema, 2000.
Orchestrator and conductor, The Caveman's Valentine (also known as Sign of the Killer), MCA/Universal, 2001.
Conductor and orchestrator, Original Sin (also known as Peche originel), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2001.
Conductor and organist, Barbershop, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2002.
Song performer, "Uptown Lowdown" and "JMP," People I Know (also known as Im inneren kreis and Der innere kreis), Miramax, 2003.
Film Appearances:
Trumpet player with Billie Holiday Quartet, Malcolm X, Warner Bros., 1992.
Television Appearances; Specials:
Country Spring Break '94, ABC, 1994.
Swing into Christmas, Arts and Entertainment, 1995.
Television Appearances; Miniseries:
Himself, A Girl Thing, Showtime, 2001.
Television Appearances; Episodic:
Guest, Late Show with David Letterman, 1999.
Appeared in episodes of ABC in Concert, ABC, and Evening at Pops, PBS.
Television Music Performer:
Soul of the Game (movie), HBO, 1996.
Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives (special), HBO, 2003.
RECORDINGS
Albums; Solo Artist:
Terence Blanchard, Columbia/Sony, 1991.
Simply Stated, Columbia/Sony, 1992.
The Malcolm X Jazz Suite, Columbia/Sony, 1993.
In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook, Columbia/Sony, 1994.
Romantic Defiance, Columbia/Sony, 1995.
The Heart Speaks, Columbia, 1995.
Jazz in Film, Sony Classical, 1999.
Wandering Moon, Sony Classical, 2000.
Let's Get Lost: The Songs of Jimmy McHugh, Sony Classical, 2001.
Bounce, Blue Note, 2003.
Flow, Blue Note, 2005.
Albums; With Donald Harrison:
New York Second Line, Concord Jazz, 1983.
Discernment, Concord Jazz, 1986.
Nascence, Columbia, 1986.
(With Harrison and others) Eric Dolphy and Booker Little Remembered Live at Sweet Basil, two volumes, Evidence, 1986.
(With Harrison and others) Fire Waltz: Eric Dolphy and Booker Little Remembered, Projazz, 1986.
Crystal Stair, Columbia/CBS, 1987.
Black Pearl, Columbia/CBS, 1988.
Albums; With Art Blakey:
New York Scene, Concord Jazz, 1984.
Live at Kimball's, Concord Jazz, 1987.
Blue Night, Timeless, 1991.
Dr. Jekyle, Evidence, 1992.
Hard Champion, Evidence, 1992.
New Year's Eve at Sweet Basil, Evidence, 1992.
Film Soundtrack Albums; Contributor:
School Daze, EMI-Manhattan, 1988.
Do the Right Thing, Columbia, 1989.
Mo' Better Blues, Columbia/Sony, 1990.
Jungle Fever, Motown, 1991.
Malcolm X, Columbia/Sony, 1993.
Sugar Hill, Arista, 1993.
Crooklyn, 1994.
The Inkwell, Buena Vista, 1994.
Trial by Jury, 1994.
Backbeat, Polygram/Verve, 1994.
Clockers, Columbia/Sony, 1995.
The Promised Land, Columbia/Sony, 1995.
Get on the Bus, Columbia, 1996.
'Til There Was You, Paramount, 1997.
4 Little Girls, 1997.
Eve's Bayou, Sonic Images/MCA, 1997.
Summer of Sam, 1999.
Next Friday, 2000.
The Caveman's Valentine, Decca, 2001.
Original Sin, Chapter III, 2001.
25th Hour, Hollywood, 2002.
People I Know, Decca, 2003.
She Hate Me, Milan, 2004.
Also contributed to the soundtrack recording of Housesitter.
Videos:
Rendezvous in New York (concert video), Ideal Entertainment, 2004.
WRITINGS
Film Music:
Song, "Sing Soweto," Mo' Better Blues, Universal, 1990.
Jungle Fever, Universal, 1991.
Malcolm X, Warner Bros., 1992.
Crooklyn, Universal, 1994.
Sugar Hill (also known as Harlem), Twentieth Century-Fox, 1994.
The Inkwell (also known as No Ordinary Summer), Buena Vista, 1994.
Trial by Jury, Warner Bros., 1994.
Clockers, Universal, 1995.
Get On the Bus, Columbia, 1996.
4 Little Girls, Green Valley Films, 1997.
'Til There Was You, Paramount, 1997.
Eve's Bayou, MCA/Universal, 1997.
Summer of Sam, Buena Vista, 1999.
Next Friday, New Line Cinema, 2000.
Love and Basketball, New Line Cinema, 2000.
Bamboozled, New Line Cinema, 2000.
Underscore, The Caveman's Valentine (also known as The Sign of the Killer), MCA/Universal, 2001.
Original Sin (also known as Peche originel), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2001.
Glitter, Twentieth Century-Fox, 2001.
Jim Brown All American, HBO Sports/40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 2002.
Barbershop, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2002.
25th Hour, Buena Vista, 2002.
(Including songs "Uptown Lowdown" and "JMP"), People I Know (also known as Im inneren kreis and Der innere kreis), Miramax, 2003.
Dark Blue, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists, 2003.
Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power (documentary), 2004.
Original music, She Hate Me, Sony Pictures Classics, 2004.
Drum, Armada Pictures International, 2004.
Television Music; Movies:
Assault at West Point: The Court-Martial of Johnson Whittaker (also known as Assault at Westpoint), Showtime, 1994.
(Contributor) Soul of the Game, HBO, 1996.
Gia, HBO, 1998.
The Tempest, NBC, 1998.
A Saintly Switch (also known as In Your Shoes), ABC, 1999.
Free of Eden, Showtime, 1999.
The Color of Courage, USA Network, 1999.
Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (also known as Having Our Say), CBS, 1999.
Navigating the Heart, Lifetime, 2000.
The Truth about Jane, Lifetime, 2000.
Bojangles, Showtime, 2001.
Redemption, FX Channel, 2004.
Their Eyes Were Watching God (also known as Oprah Winfrey Presents: Their Eyes Were Watching God), ABC, 2005.
Television Music; Miniseries:
The Promised Land, The Discovery Channel, 1995.
A Girl Thing, Showtime, 2001.
Television Music; Other:
Special music, Soul of the Game (also known as Field of Honour), HBO, 1996.
Sucker Free City (pilot), Showtime, 2004.
Sucker Free City (series), Showtime, 2005.
ADAPTATIONS
Music composed by Blanchard for various films was also featured in the television special Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives, broadcast by HBO in 2003.
OTHER SOURCES
Books:
Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 43, Gale, 2004.
Contemporary Musicians, Volume 13, Gale, 1994.
Magro, Anthony, Contemporary Cat: Terence Blanchard with Special Guests, Scarecrow Press, 2002.
Periodicals:
Down Beat, May, 1999, p. 41; December 3, 2000.
Essence, April 1, 2001, p. 76.
Jazz Now, July, 1996.
Time, May 16, 1994, p. 89.
Electronic:
Terence Blanchard Electronic Press Kit, http://www.terenceblanchard.com, May 9, 2005.