The New Orleans trumpeter recently released his new album, which uses electronic sounds and grooves to address age-old issues.
By Alex Rawls
TERENCE BLANCHARD’S POWERFUL & FUNKY PROTEST ALBUM “BREATHLESS” |Blue Note Records
Since top-tier jazz and multiple Grammy-winning trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard embarked on his solo recording career with his eponymous Columbia Records album in 1991, the New Orleans-born and -based artist has traveled many paths musically, including delivering adventurous and provocative acoustic jazz outings of original material, composing over 50 soundtracks and even, in 2013, debuting Champion: An Opera in Jazz. He has also, in the spirit of his onetime membership in the jazz school of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, mentored several musicians in his bands who have gone on to have significant recording careers of their own (including Lionel Loueke, Aaron Parks, Kendrick Scott and one of his current band members Fabian Almazan).
The Big Easy pays a three-day visit to Detroit |The Detroit News
More than 1,000 miles separate Detroit and New Orleans, but the two towns are close in spirit.
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra will explore the cities’ kinship in a three-day event June 2-4 at The Max called “A Musical Tale of Two Cities: Motown Meets the Big Easy.” It kicks off with a Bourbon Street Party featuring Big Sam’s Funky Nation and continues with a master class and performances by youth groups from the Motor City and the Crescent City.
By George Bulanda
Terence Blanchard on Ferguson vs. Waco, Spike Lee’s ‘Chiraq’ & His New Album ‘Breathless’ |Billboard
Trumpet player and composer Terence Blanchard could rest on his laurels with five Grammy Awards, a broad solo discography that spans 20 years, and film scoring credits that range from Love & Basketball to Spike Lee’s Mo’ Betta Blues.
But Blanchard keeps working. Back with a new band — the E-Collective, complete with a guitarist he met via Facebook — and a new sound (“It’s a band that has a groove philosophy,” he says), Blanchard is staying contemporary while continuing to use his music to bring attention to injustice. On his new record Breathless (out now on Blue Note), the trumpet player was inspired by the urgency behind Eric Garner’s plea-turned-national rallying cry, “I can’t breathe.”
By Natalie Weiner
Andrew F. Scott – Artist |Terence Blanchard Tumblr
Andrew F. Scott created the cover for my new release, Breathless. He’s the Andrew Scott from Savannah, not the Scottish Andrew Scott, who is also a sculptor. You can tell the difference. Andrew F. Scott’s art has everything to do with African American culture and art, it is steeped in it and forged by it, though if you forget the F. as the middle initial you’ll never find him in Google as the other Scott rules the search pages.
Terence Blanchard Named Visiting Scholar at Berklee |Berklee
Berklee has named world-renowned trumpeter, composer, bandleader, and Blue Note recording artist Terence Blanchard as a visiting scholar in the Jazz Composition Department beginning in the fall of 2015. Blanchard will also work in the Film Scoring and Brass departments, and for the Berklee Global Jazz Institute.
Dan Ouellette’s Jazz Notes: Trumpeter Giant Terence Blanchard Takes a New-Grooved, E-Collective Swing Into Jazz Fusion, a la Miles |Zeal
As a leader, trumpeter Terence Blanchard has been an important mainstay on the jazz circuit since the ‘80s, recording dozens of albums either with fellow New Orleans artist Donald Harrison or on his own with his own bands (which often serve as a farm system for future greats like his mentor Art Blakey who brought him up in his Jazz Messengers). Add to that the numerous soundtracks he’s recorded over the years (significantly with director Spike Lee) as well as an opera (2013’s Champion: An Opera in Jazz. While Blanchard has traversed many paths musically, there had been one zone in which he had not traveled: electric jazz fusion.
By Dan Ouellete
Curtain Call: Terence Blanchard Celebrates the Legacy and Future of Jazz in Two Performances |Los Angeles Magazine
The Grammy-winning trumpeter will play at Disney Hall this week and the Playboy Jazz Festival in June.
By Craig Byrd
New Orleans trumpeter Terence Blanchard takes on tragedy with “Breathless” |NOLA.com
As a high school student riding the streetcar to Loyola University’s summer music camp,Terence Blanchard dreamed of one day living in a mansion along St. Charles Avenue. Thanks to his success as a jazz trumpeter and prolific composer of dozens of film scores, he realized that dream in 2007.
By Keith Spera
Did Terence Blanchard really channel Nirvana at New Orleans Jazz Fest? |NOLA.com
Terence Blanchard set a golden laptop center stage at the New Orleans Jazz Fest on Saturday (May 2). Like a tribal fetish in an African ritual, it provided an appropriate centerpiece for an unbuttoned, electric, utterly raw, and remarkably beautiful performance from the New Orleans composer and trumpet virtuoso.
By Chris Waddington