Terence Blanchard

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American trumpeter and composerMusical artist

Terence Oliver Blanchard (born March 13, 1962) is an American trumpeter and composer. He started his career in 1982 as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, then The Jazz Messengers. He has composed more than forty film scores and performed on more than fifty. A frequent collaborator with director Spike Lee, he has been nominated for two Academy Awards for composing the scores for Lee's films BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). He has won five Grammy Awards from fourteen nominations.

From 2000 to 2011, Blanchard served as artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Ins*ute of Jazz. In 2011, he was named artistic director of the Henry Mancini Ins*ute at the University of Miami, and in 2015, he became a visiting scholar in jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music. In 2019, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), named Blanchard to its Endowed Chair in Jazz Studies, where he will remain until 2024.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York staged Blanchard's opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones in its 2021-2022 season, the first opera by an African American composer in the organization's history.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Print biography
4 Thelonious Monk Ins*ute of Jazz
5 Other work
- 5.1 Operas
6 Awards and honors
- 6.1 Academy Awards
- 6.2 British Academy Film Awards
- 6.3 Golden Globe Awards
- 6.4 Grammy Awards
- 6.5 Miscellaneous Awards
7 Discography
- 7.1 As sideman
8 Filmography
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links

Early life

Blanchard was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the only child of Wilhelmina and Joseph Oliver Blanchard. His father was a manager at an insurance company and a part-time opera singer. Blanchard began playing piano at the age of five, then the trumpet at age eight after hearing Alvin Alcorn. He played trumpet with his childhood friend Wynton Marsalis in summer music camps, along with his friend Branford Marsalis. In high school, he studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts under Roger Dickerson, his composition teacher and Ellis Marsalis who wanted Blanchard to become a piano player. From 1980 to 1982, he studied under jazz saxophonist Paul Jeffrey and trumpeter Bill Fielder at Rutgers University.

Career

The Jazz Messengers of 1985, from left: Jean Toussaint, Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, and Lonnie Plaxico

While studying jazz, Blanchard began touring with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. In 1982, Wynton Marsalis recommended Blanchard as his replacement in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Blanchard was the band's music director until 1986. He played alongside Blakey, Donald Harrison, and Mulgrew Miller, recording five albums from 1984 to 1988. He and Donald Harrison left Art Blakey in 1986 to form their quintet 'The Terence Blanchard/Donald Harrison Quintet' and signed with CBS Records. He left the Jazz Messengers in 1990 to pursue a solo career.

In the 1990s, after an embouchure change, Blanchard recorded his self-*led debut for Columbia Records which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Jazz chart. After performing on soundtracks for Spike Lee movies, including Do the Right Thing (1989) and Mo' Better Blues (1990), Lee wanted Blanchard to compose the scores for his films beginning with Jungle Fever (1991). Blanchard has written the score for most of Spike Lee's films since, including Malcolm X (1992), Clockers (1995), Summer of Sam (1999), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), BlacKkKlansman (2018), and Da 5 Bloods (2020).

Blanchard composed the score for Spike Lee's four-hour Hurricane Katrina do*entary for HBO en*led When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006). Blanchard appeared in front of the camera with his mother to share their journey back to find her home destroyed. He also created a 2007 album *led A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) in which he recreated some pieces used in the do*entary, as well as creating more pieces along with his band, to provide audiences with the opportunity to sympathize with those who had been affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Blanchard has also composed for other directors, including Gina Prince Bythewood, Ron Shelton, and Kasi Lemmons. Entertainment Weekly proclaimed Blanchard "central to a general resurgence of jazz composition for film." In a 1994 interview for DownBeat, Blanchard said: "Writing for film is fun, but nothing can beat being a jazz musician, playing a club, playing a concert".

He has recorded several award-winning albums for Columbia, Sony Cl*ical and Blue Note Records, including In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook (1994), Romantic Defiance (1995), The Heart Speaks (1996), Wandering Moon (2000), Let's Get Lost (2001) and Flow (2005), which was produced by pianist Herbie Han* and received two Grammy Award nominations.

Terence Blanchard's 2001 album Let's Get Lost featured arrangements of cl*ic songs written by Jimmy McHugh and performed by his quintet with vocalists Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, and C*andra Wilson.

In 2005, Blanchard was part of the ensemble that won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for his participation on McCoy Tyner's Illuminations, an award he shared with Tyner, Gary Bartz, Christian McBride and Lewis Nash.

Blanchard was a judge for the 5th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers. In 2009 in the Disney movie, The Princess and the Frog, Blanchard played all of the alligator Louis' trumpet parts. He also voiced the role of Earl the bandleader in the riverboat band.

Blanchard's opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones with a libretto by Kasi Lemmons had its world premiere at Opera Theater of St. Louis in 2019, and, on September 27, 2021, had its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, opening the company's 2021-22 season. It is the first opera by a black composer in the entire 138 year history of the company.

Print biography

In December 2002, Scarecrow Press published Contemporary Cat: Terence Blanchard with Special Guests, an authorized biography of Blanchard written by Anthony Magro.

Thelonious Monk Ins*ute of Jazz

In the fall of 2000, Terence Blanchard was named artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Ins*ute of Jazz at the University of California Los Angeles. Herbie Han* serves as chairman; Wayne Shorter, Clark Terry and Jimmy Heath were members of the board of trustees. The conservatory offers an intensive, tuition-free, two-year master's program to a limited number of students (only up to eight per every two years).

In his role as artistic director, Blanchard works with the students in the areas of artistic development, arranging, composition, and career counseling. He also participates in master cl*es and community outreach activities *ociated with the program. "Out of my desire to give something back to the jazz community, I wanted to get involved. In fact, I've always said that if I wasn't a musician, that I would like to be a teacher. So I was glad to get involved and to be a part of this unique program that fosters such an open and accessible environment."

In April 2007, the Ins*ute announced its "Commitment to New Orleans" initiative which includes the relocation of the program to the campus of Loyola University New Orleans from Los Angeles. Blanchard had p*ionately lobbied the Ins*ute to relocate saying, "After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was shaken and its musical roots were threatened. I grew up in this city and learned about jazz here at Loyola with other young jazz musicians like Wynton and Branford Marsalis and I know that the Ins*ute will have a great impact on jazz and in our communities. We are going to work hard to help jazz and New Orleans flourish once again."

Other work

Composer Terence Blanchard and his wife, Robin Burgess, attend the 91st Academy Awards in Los Angeles on February 24th, 2019 where Blanchard was nominated for Best Original Score for his work on BlackKklansman.

In 2007, the Monterey Jazz Festival named Blanchard Artist-In-Residence, citing him as "one his generation’s most artistically mature and innovative artists and a committed supporter of jazz education." The Monterey Jazz Festival 50th Anniversary Band featuring Blanchard on trumpet will make a 54-date, 10-week tour of the United States from January 8, 2008 to March 16, 2008. Rounding out the band will be saxophonist James Moody, pianist Benny Green, b*ist Derrick Hodge and drummer Kendrick Scott. The special ensemble will also feature jazz singer Nnenna Freelon.

In December 2007, the Terence Blanchard Quintet performed the movie music of Spike Lee and Terence Blanchard with an orchestra and singers Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, and Raul Midón at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

In November 2008, he was a guest on Private P*ions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3.

On February 10, 2008, Blanchard won his first Grammy Award as a bandleader for A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) in the category of Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. His two other Grammy Awards were as a sideman for Art Blakey (1984) and McCoy Tyner (2004).

Blanchard composed original music for Stephen Adly Guirgis's Broadway play The *er With the Hat, which premiered at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on April 11, 2011. The show is described as "a high-octane verbal cage match about love, fidelity and misplaced haberdashery."

On January 20, 2012, the film Red Tails was released nationwide in the United States. Blanchard served as the composer of the original score, marking the first time he has worked with executive producer George Lucas.

He composed incidental music for the 2012 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.

He released Magnetic May 28, 2013 on Blue Note Records.

Blanchard's album, Breathless, with his new band, The E-Collective, was released by Blue Note Records on May 26, 2015. Featuring Maroon 5's PJ Morton on three cuts, and JRei Oliver, Terence's son, on spoken word, the core band consists of Fabian Almazan on keyboards, Charles Altura on guitar, Donald Ramsey on b*, and Oscar Seaton on drums. Cuepoint, on the web publishing site, Medium, published Blanchard's essay, "Using Music to Underscore Three Words: I Can't Breathe" which details Blanchard's revulsion by the death of Eric Garner and how the subsequent "I Can't Breathe" campaign inspired the series of songs the E-Collective created for the album.

On November 9, 2019, Blanchard performed alongside Lady Gaga as a special guest during her Jazz and Piano show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Operas

On June 15, 2013, after a workshop with Opera Fusion: New Works, Blanchard premiered his first opera, Champion, at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. It is about the life of prize fighting boxer Emile Griffith from St. Thomas, with a libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Cristofer. It starred Denyce Graves, Aubrey Alli*, Robert Orth, and Arthur Woodley.

In the summer of 2019, Blanchard's second opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, with a libretto by Kasi Lemmons, was premiered by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. The opera, based on the 2014 memoir of the same *le by Charles Blow, was expanded with added dance sequences and a larger role for the part of Billie, Charles's mother, and opened the Metropolitan Opera's 2021-2022 season. It will close the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2021-2022 mainstage opera season. Blanchard is the first Black composer to have an opera performed at the Metropolitan Opera.

Awards and honors

Academy Awards

British Academy Film Awards

Golden Globe Awards

Grammy Awards

Miscellaneous Awards

Discography

A complete discography of Blanchard's jazz recordings as a bandleader.

As sideman

With Art Blakey

Oh-By the Way (Timeless, 1982)
New York Scene (Concord, 1984)
Blue Night (Timeless, 1985)

With Joanne Brackeen

Fi-Fi Goes to Heaven (Concord Jazz, 1987)

With Ralph Moore

Images (Landmark, 1989)

With Cedar Walton

As Long as There's Music (Muse, 1990 )
Roots (Astor Place, 1997)

Filmography

A selected filmography of Terence Blanchard scores.

(*denotes score available on CD)

1991 Jungle Fever
1992 Malcolm X*
1994 Sugar Hill*
1994 Trial by Jury
1994 The Inkwell
1994 Crooklyn
1995 Clockers*
1996 Get on the Bus
1997 Eve's Bayou*
1997 'Til There Was You
1997 4 Little Girls
1998 Gia
1999 Summer of Sam
2000 Love & Basketball
2000 Next Friday
2000 Bamboozled
2000 Finding Forrester
2001 The Caveman's Valentine*
2001 Original Sin*
2001 Glitter
2002 Barbershop
2002 Dark Blue
2002 25th Hour*
2002 People I Know*
2003 Unchained Memories*
2004 She Hate Me*
2006 Inside Man*
2006 When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
2007 Talk to Me
2008 Miracle at St. Anna*
2008 Cadillac Records
2010 Bunraku
2010 Just Wright
2012 Red Tails*
2014 Black or White
2015 Chi-Raq
2016 The Comedian
2018 BlacKkKlansman*
2019 Harriet*
2020 Da 5 Bloods
2020 Perry Mason
2020 One Night in Miami...

References

External links

Biography portal

Terence Blanchard at IMDb
Terence Blanchard's official website
Terence Blanchard interview by Pete Lewis, 'Blues & Soul' November 2009
Magro, Anthony. "Contemporary Cat: Terence Blanchard with Special Guests", Scarecrow Press (2002)
Billboard Chart History for Terence Blanchard
Interview with Terence Blanchard
Terrence Blanchard Terrence Blanchard MusiCodex Page
Terence Blanchard Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2015)