Stereophile
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<p><img class="story_image" src="http://www.stereophile.com/images/813blanch.opromo_0.jpg" /></p> Down deepest, beneath everything he does, underlying all the facets of his ever-expanding career in music, Terence Blanchard is still a New Orleans guy. Question that and you can hear his dander rise.
<p>
"Even people from New Orleans don't associate me with the music community down here, because they don't see me out and about doing that," Blanchard says via cell phone one afternoon from New Orleans. "But then there will be moments. I did a gig one night at Preservation Hall with those guys, and everybody was shocked. People were coming up to me and saying, 'I didn't know you could do that!' I'm like, dude, come on now. I grew up listening to this stuff all day, every day. You can't grow up in New Orleans and not hear it. It may not be the focal point of what it is that I do today, but it's still a part of my life. It's always been and always will be.
</p><p>
"Part of my thing about living down here is to prove that, along with all the other great artists that have come from here, while we are from New Orleans, we are still of the world. New Orleans is a great place to learn jazz, because you can get a strong foundation of the core elements of what this music has been and how it developed. At the same time, this is still a breeding ground for innovation because there are always guys who are coming up with crazy ideas. You don't hear about them because it's not New York, and we don't have major record labels down here signing artists left and right, but there are always guys who are trying to push the envelope down here, it's just part of who we are."
</p><p>
If his role as "New Orleans musician" is Blanchard's best-kept secret, chances are the thing you did know about is the title of "film composer," the one he wears most often these days. With over 40 scores to his credit, Blanchard is one of the most successful jazz musicians to ever work in the film business. He began that career with a bang, breaking through in the early 1990s with scores for the Spike Lee films <i>Jungle Fever</i>, <i>Malcolm X</i>, and <i>Crooklyn</i>. In more recent years he's scored other films for Lee (<i>Inside Man</i>, 2006; <i>Miracle of St. Ann</i>, 2008), as well as titles for other directors, including <i>Glitter</i> (2001), <i>Cadillac Records</i> (2008), and, most recently, <i>Red Tails</i> (2012). On <i>Red Tails</i>, he worked for the first time with <i>Star Wars</i> creator George Lucas, the film's executive producer.
</p><p>
"George is amazing, great to work with, and very encouraging. He's the type of guy who puts a lot of trust in the people he hires. He's not going to tell you the music needs to be a certain thing. I remember he said, 'I know it's going to be fine, I know it's going to be fine,' and I said, 'No, I'd really like to play something for you.' Once I did, he said, 'Okay, that's great, but you need to go bigger.' All his movies have that big, sweeping orchestral sound to them. He's very different from Spike, but you know there are similarities between the two as well. They both really love strong melodic content. And they like to have a lot of musical content that people will identify with."
</p><p>
"Being a film composer has really made me think about the arc of telling the story," he continues. "The same thing happens when we're doing a live show. When I first started working in film, I immediately stopped thinking about having a collection of tunes on an album or playing a collection of tunes during a show, and began to think of a show or a record evolving from one thing to the next, and how those things, along with little subplots in between, could help tell a general story."
</p><p>
His latest scoring project is <i>Black Nativity</i>, a film based on a Langston Hughes poem, starring Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, and Jennifer Hudson, and directed by Kasi Lemmons, for release in the 2013 Christmas season. Blanchard also began work this summer on a film whose working title is <i>Rootie Tootie</i>. It's being directed by Daniel Algrant, whom Blanchard worked with on <i>People I Know</i> (2002), a lesser work that starred Téa Leoni, Kim Basinger, and Al Pacino. "I'm really excited about that one. It stars Christopher Walken, who plays a jazz pianist, and it's a hell of a story."
</p><p>
In a new wrinkle, the New Orleans booster/musician and successful film composer has added "opera composer" to his growing list of identities. In June 2013, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis premiered <i>Champion</i>, Blanchard's first opera, based on the story of gay boxer Emile Griffith, whose nationally televised fight with Benny Paret, in 1962, resulted in Paret's death. The opera's libretto is by playwright Michael Cristofer, and the cast featured singers Arthur Woodley, Denyce Graves, Robert Orth, Aubrey Allicock, and Meredith Arwady. The production was directed by James Robinson and conducted by George Manahan. The closest thing to opera Blanchard had done previously was the score for Emily Mann's Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams's <i>A Streetcar Named Desire</i>, in 2012. Like his film work, composing for opera has broadened his horizons. Learning new things is a process he clearly relishes, and is what makes him such a fascinating presence to follow.
</p><p>
<img src="http://www.stereophile.com/images/813blanch.cover.jpg" alt="813blanch.cover.jpg" width="600" height="600" border="0" /></p><p>
"It is the reverse of working on a film, in my opinion. With opera, I have the libretto, which is basically the script, and I am creating all these scenic backdrops musically, and then creating all the dialogue melodically. Then the singers come in and they stage it and act, and it goes into a whole other realm which is totally opposite of what I'm used to in film. I'm used to looking at something and reacting. Now these guys are listening to the music and reacting.
</p><p>
"Listening to Denyce talk about it, she talked about how, most times, they come to a project where there is a serious history behind it. This is so different for them, because they are creating precedent for what this is going to be in the future. What's also very different for them in this process is that I am giving them a ton of room, which is something they are not accustomed to. Being opera singers, they are very much accustomed to people telling them the music goes this way, and I'm telling them, 'No, this is my idea, but I need you to feel comfortable singing it, so if you need to change a note here or change a note there, I'm fine with all that.'"
</p><p>
At the moment, it's unclear whether or not <i>Champion</i> will be recorded. "It's a bit of a struggle, because opera recordings are not the most lucrative thing on the planet, but we feel that this is something special that needs to be documented."
</p><p>
Given his many interests and pursuits, it's easy to forget that Blanchard's main gig, the one he was once best known for, is as a jazz trumpeter. In that capacity, his shining new record, <i><a href="http://www.stereophile.com/content/recording-august-2013-imagnetici">Magnetic</a></i> (Blue Note), could serve as a metaphor for his intensely creative personality, one that his bandmates continually marvel over and take as an example to emulate.
</p><p>
"When I think about playing the drums, I get so overwhelmed. There is so much I want to get to," says drummer Kendrick Scott. "When we're playing a gig, and the drums are messing with me a little bit, and Terence is playing the trumpet, and I'm like wow, Terence is ridiculous
[Source: http://www.stereophile.com/content/terence-blanchard-animal-magnetism]
<p>
"Even people from New Orleans don't associate me with the music community down here, because they don't see me out and about doing that," Blanchard says via cell phone one afternoon from New Orleans. "But then there will be moments. I did a gig one night at Preservation Hall with those guys, and everybody was shocked. People were coming up to me and saying, 'I didn't know you could do that!' I'm like, dude, come on now. I grew up listening to this stuff all day, every day. You can't grow up in New Orleans and not hear it. It may not be the focal point of what it is that I do today, but it's still a part of my life. It's always been and always will be.
</p><p>
"Part of my thing about living down here is to prove that, along with all the other great artists that have come from here, while we are from New Orleans, we are still of the world. New Orleans is a great place to learn jazz, because you can get a strong foundation of the core elements of what this music has been and how it developed. At the same time, this is still a breeding ground for innovation because there are always guys who are coming up with crazy ideas. You don't hear about them because it's not New York, and we don't have major record labels down here signing artists left and right, but there are always guys who are trying to push the envelope down here, it's just part of who we are."
</p><p>
If his role as "New Orleans musician" is Blanchard's best-kept secret, chances are the thing you did know about is the title of "film composer," the one he wears most often these days. With over 40 scores to his credit, Blanchard is one of the most successful jazz musicians to ever work in the film business. He began that career with a bang, breaking through in the early 1990s with scores for the Spike Lee films <i>Jungle Fever</i>, <i>Malcolm X</i>, and <i>Crooklyn</i>. In more recent years he's scored other films for Lee (<i>Inside Man</i>, 2006; <i>Miracle of St. Ann</i>, 2008), as well as titles for other directors, including <i>Glitter</i> (2001), <i>Cadillac Records</i> (2008), and, most recently, <i>Red Tails</i> (2012). On <i>Red Tails</i>, he worked for the first time with <i>Star Wars</i> creator George Lucas, the film's executive producer.
</p><p>
"George is amazing, great to work with, and very encouraging. He's the type of guy who puts a lot of trust in the people he hires. He's not going to tell you the music needs to be a certain thing. I remember he said, 'I know it's going to be fine, I know it's going to be fine,' and I said, 'No, I'd really like to play something for you.' Once I did, he said, 'Okay, that's great, but you need to go bigger.' All his movies have that big, sweeping orchestral sound to them. He's very different from Spike, but you know there are similarities between the two as well. They both really love strong melodic content. And they like to have a lot of musical content that people will identify with."
</p><p>
"Being a film composer has really made me think about the arc of telling the story," he continues. "The same thing happens when we're doing a live show. When I first started working in film, I immediately stopped thinking about having a collection of tunes on an album or playing a collection of tunes during a show, and began to think of a show or a record evolving from one thing to the next, and how those things, along with little subplots in between, could help tell a general story."
</p><p>
His latest scoring project is <i>Black Nativity</i>, a film based on a Langston Hughes poem, starring Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, and Jennifer Hudson, and directed by Kasi Lemmons, for release in the 2013 Christmas season. Blanchard also began work this summer on a film whose working title is <i>Rootie Tootie</i>. It's being directed by Daniel Algrant, whom Blanchard worked with on <i>People I Know</i> (2002), a lesser work that starred Téa Leoni, Kim Basinger, and Al Pacino. "I'm really excited about that one. It stars Christopher Walken, who plays a jazz pianist, and it's a hell of a story."
</p><p>
In a new wrinkle, the New Orleans booster/musician and successful film composer has added "opera composer" to his growing list of identities. In June 2013, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis premiered <i>Champion</i>, Blanchard's first opera, based on the story of gay boxer Emile Griffith, whose nationally televised fight with Benny Paret, in 1962, resulted in Paret's death. The opera's libretto is by playwright Michael Cristofer, and the cast featured singers Arthur Woodley, Denyce Graves, Robert Orth, Aubrey Allicock, and Meredith Arwady. The production was directed by James Robinson and conducted by George Manahan. The closest thing to opera Blanchard had done previously was the score for Emily Mann's Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams's <i>A Streetcar Named Desire</i>, in 2012. Like his film work, composing for opera has broadened his horizons. Learning new things is a process he clearly relishes, and is what makes him such a fascinating presence to follow.
</p><p>
<img src="http://www.stereophile.com/images/813blanch.cover.jpg" alt="813blanch.cover.jpg" width="600" height="600" border="0" /></p><p>
"It is the reverse of working on a film, in my opinion. With opera, I have the libretto, which is basically the script, and I am creating all these scenic backdrops musically, and then creating all the dialogue melodically. Then the singers come in and they stage it and act, and it goes into a whole other realm which is totally opposite of what I'm used to in film. I'm used to looking at something and reacting. Now these guys are listening to the music and reacting.
</p><p>
"Listening to Denyce talk about it, she talked about how, most times, they come to a project where there is a serious history behind it. This is so different for them, because they are creating precedent for what this is going to be in the future. What's also very different for them in this process is that I am giving them a ton of room, which is something they are not accustomed to. Being opera singers, they are very much accustomed to people telling them the music goes this way, and I'm telling them, 'No, this is my idea, but I need you to feel comfortable singing it, so if you need to change a note here or change a note there, I'm fine with all that.'"
</p><p>
At the moment, it's unclear whether or not <i>Champion</i> will be recorded. "It's a bit of a struggle, because opera recordings are not the most lucrative thing on the planet, but we feel that this is something special that needs to be documented."
</p><p>
Given his many interests and pursuits, it's easy to forget that Blanchard's main gig, the one he was once best known for, is as a jazz trumpeter. In that capacity, his shining new record, <i><a href="http://www.stereophile.com/content/recording-august-2013-imagnetici">Magnetic</a></i> (Blue Note), could serve as a metaphor for his intensely creative personality, one that his bandmates continually marvel over and take as an example to emulate.
</p><p>
"When I think about playing the drums, I get so overwhelmed. There is so much I want to get to," says drummer Kendrick Scott. "When we're playing a gig, and the drums are messing with me a little bit, and Terence is playing the trumpet, and I'm like wow, Terence is ridiculous
[Source: http://www.stereophile.com/content/terence-blanchard-animal-magnetism]
