Terence Blanchard


Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and music educator. Blanchard started his career in 1980 as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, then Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He has composed more than forty film scores and performed on more than fifty. He is a frequent collaborator with Spike Lee, and received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Score on Lee's 2018 film BlacKkKlansman.
From 2000 to 2011, Blanchard served as artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. In 2011 he was named artistic director of the Henry Mancini Institute at the University of Miami. In the fall of 2015 he was named a visiting scholar in jazz composition at Berklee College of Music. In 2019, the University of California, Los Angeles, named Blanchard their Endowed Chair in Jazz Studies, where he will remain until 2024.
The Metropolitan Opera announced it will stage Blanchard's opera Fire Shut up In My Bones, with a libretto by Kasi Lemmons, in their 2021-2022 Season. As of 2019, this will be the first production by a black composer staged by the Metropolitan Opera in the organization's 136-year history.

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

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-titled 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 and Mo' Better Blues, Lee wanted Blanchard to compose the scores for his films beginning with Jungle Fever. Blanchard has written the score for most of Spike Lee's films since, including Malcolm X, Clockers, Summer of Sam, 25th Hour, Inside Man, BlacKkKlansman, and Da 5 Bloods.
In 2006, he composed the score for Spike Lee's four-hour Hurricane Katrina documentary for HBO entitled '. Blanchard appeared in front of the camera with his mother to share their journey back to find her home destroyed. He also created an album titled A Tale of God's Will , in which he recreated some pieces used in the documentary, 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 Down Beat, 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 Classical and Blue Note Records, including ', Romantic Defiance, The Heart Speaks, Wandering Moon, Let's Get Lost and Flow, which was produced by pianist Herbie Hancock and received two Grammy Award nominations.
Terence Blanchard's 2001 album Let's Get Lost featured arrangements of classic songs written by Jimmy McHugh and performed by his quintet with vocalists Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, and Cassandra 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.

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 Institute of Jazz

In the fall of 2000, Terence Blanchard was named artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at the University of California Los Angeles. Herbie Hancock serves as chairman; Wayne Shorter, Clark Terry and Jimmy Heath sit on the board of trustees. The conservatory offers an intensive, tuition-free, two-year master's program to a limited number of students.
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 classes and community outreach activities associated 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 Institute 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 passionately lobbied the Institute 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 Institute 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

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, bassist 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 Passions, 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 in the category of Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. His two other Grammy Awards were as a sideman for Art Blakey and McCoy Tyner.
Blanchard composed original music for Stephen Adly Guirgis's Broadway play The Motherfucker 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.
On June 15, 2013, after a workshop with, 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 stars Denyce Graves, Aubrey Allicock, Robert Orth, and Arthur Woodley.
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 bass, 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.
In the summer of 2019, Blanchard will premiere his second opera, , with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. The opera is based on the memoir of the same title by Charles Blow.
On November 9, 2019 Blanchard performed alongside Lady Gaga as a special guest during her Jazz and Piano show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Awards and honors

Grammy Awards

Selected film-related awards for Terence Blanchard.
YearAwardCategoryScoreResult
1994Soul Train Music AwardBest Jazz AlbumThe Malcolm X Jazz SuiteNominated
1995Emmy AwardBest Original Score for a TV Mini-SeriesThe Promised LandNominated
2003World Soundtrack AwardSoundtrack Composer of the Year25th HourNominated
2003Sierra AwardBest Score25th HourNominated
2003Golden GlobeBest Original Score – Motion Picture25th HourNominated
2003Central Ohio Film Critics Association Best Score25th HourWinner
2005Black ReelBest Original ScoreShe Hate MeNominated
2007Black ReelBest Original ScoreInside ManNominated
2019Academy AwardBest Original ScoreBlacKkKlansmanNominated

Discography

A complete discography of Blanchard's jazz recordings as a bandleader.
YearTitleGenreLabel
1984New York Second Line JazzConcord
1986Discernment JazzConcord
1986Nascence JazzColumbia
1987Crystal Stair JazzColumbia
1988Black Pearl JazzColumbia
1991Terence BlanchardJazzColumbia
1992Simply StatedJazzColumbia
1993The Malcolm X Jazz SuiteJazzColumbia
1994JazzColumbia
1995Romantic DefianceJazzColumbia
1996The Heart SpeaksLatin jazzColumbia
1999Jazz in FilmJazzSony Classical
2000Wandering MoonJazzSony Classical
2001Let's Get Lost: The Songs of Jimmy McHughJazzSony Classical
2003BounceJazzBlue Note
2005FlowJazzBlue Note
2007A Tale of God's Will JazzBlue Note
2009ChoicesJazzConcord
2011Chano y Dizzy! Latin JazzConcord
2013MagneticJazzBlue Note
2015Breathless Jazz, fusionBlue Note
2018Live Jazz, fusionBlue Note

As sideman

With Art Blakey
With Joanne Brackeen
With Ralph Moore
With Cedar Walton
A selected filmography of Terence Blanchard scores.