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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZBLANCHARD, Terence(b 13 March 1962, New Orleans LA) Trumpet; one of the stars of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from '82. Compositions included the title track of Oh, By The Way '82 on Timeless; lovely solo feature on 'Tenderly' in Blakey LP New York Scene '84 (which also included 'Oh, By The Way'). LPs on Concord Jazz as co-leader with Donald Harrison: New York Second Line '83 included the current Messengers except for Marvin 'Smitty' Smith on drums (b 24 June 1961, Waukegan IL; own albums Keeper Of The Drums '87, The Road Less Traveled '89); Discernment '84 has Mulgrew Miller on piano, Phil Bowler on bass and Ralph Peterson Jr on drums, all on Concord. Blanchard and Harrison also played on two volumes of Booker Little Remembered/Live At Sweet Basil '86, later on Evidence, re-creating the famous Dolphy/Little sessions from '61, with the original rhythm section. Nascence '86 was Blanchard's aptly titled debut on Columbia, followed by Crystal Stair '87, Terence Blanchard '91, Simply Stated '92, The Malcolm X Jazz Suite '93, The Billie Holiday Songbook '94; Romantic Defiance '95 with Kenny Garrett on tenor and his usual drummer Troy Davis showed Blanchard still one of the most talented of his generation. The Heart Speaks '96 was a lushly arranged set of Brazilian ballads by singer/pianist Ivan Lins, with Davis, Paulinho Da Costa and others. There were a dozen or so more albums, and a parallel career scoring films. Based in his home town, Blanchard's new album in 2013 was Magnetic on Blue Note. In June of that year his opera was premiered, called Champion, with playwright Michael Cristofer, about Emile Griffith, a boxer who won several championships and who killed a man in the ring in 1962. Blanchard has written the score for almost all of Spike Lee’s films and for dozens more; his score for Lee’s BlackKkKlansman was nominated for an Oscar in 2019. Blanchard's opera Fire Shut Up In My Bones (libretto by Kasi Lemmons) was premiered in 2019 by the Opera Theater of St Louis, and the Metropolitan Opera of New York announced plans to stage it; after the Met had been shut for 18 months during the pandemic the new production of Fire Shut Up In My Bones, with some added new material, was the Met's first staging of an opera by an African-American composer in September 2021, celebrated with wild applause by the audience. It was due to move to Chicago's Lyric Opera in March, and to Los Angeles sometime soon. |