Trumpeter Terence Blanchard and his smoking sextet swing into town this week as part of Duke Performances' April ARTSfest. Blanchard is a veteran of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Grammy winner and composer of numerous film scores-including Spike Lee's Barbershop-and his 2005 album Flow (Blue Note) was produced by jazz great Herbie Hancock. recess' David Graham talked to Blanchard to get the low-down on Hurricane Katrina, the record industry and working with Herbie Hancock.
recess: You're currently Artistic Director at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance. How did you get involved in the educational side of jazz?
Terence Blanchard: It started when I first got into business. Wherever we would go, because we were so young, a lot of colleges would want us to come by and talk to students. For me, it was always about sharing ideas and letting people know that if I'm out here doing this, they could be out here doing this too. Everything was just one-offs and master classes until I was hired by the Thelonious Monk Institute.
As a New Orleans native, what is your reaction to Hurricane Katrina? What role do jazz musicians have?
It's interesting, I saw something the other day that was kind of unnerving. I saw a sign that said, "Bite Me Katrina, I'm back home." That was unnerving because as devastating as Katrina was, that's God's will and you have to accept that and move on. There are a lot of people who suffered and continue to suffer severely. It's about what the government is not doing-there are people who are working hard down there and we're working hard to let people know that there's still a lot of work to do. And let's not even begin to talk about insurance companies that are taking advantage of people. I [talk about] it in my shows a lot of times. I don't do it every night. When it comes up, it comes up. I remind people, you're having a good time tonight and you're going to go home after this, but a lot of people aren't. One of the things we can do as public figures is to talk about it; another responsibility we have is to be [proactive].
You used to record for Columbia/Sony Classical but your last two discs have been on Blue Note. Can you talk about the switch and the state of the jazz record industry?
The switch from Sony to Blue Note was a great one for me. When I was on Sony Classical, they wanted me to make concept records. At a certain point in my career that was fun for me, but later I knew I had a band that was developing a sound and I wanted to work with that. It wasn't like I got dropped from Sony, we just agreed that it was time to move on. I had talked to [Blue Note CEO] Bruce Lundvall and he told me that whatever I wanted to do, I could do it. They've been very supportive. Bruce Lundvall is a businessman, but he's also a music lover. In terms of the record industry, it's a numbers game. It's incumbent upon the artist not to forget that we're artists. Blakey used to say, 'A slow nickel beats a fast dime every time.'
On Flow, there's a strong West African influence, imparted in large part by Lionel Loueke. Why are so many jazz musicians exploring West African music today?
With Lionel it was purely a coincidence, I had been writing music for South Africa for a long time and all of a sudden this guy was a student at the Monk Institute. For myself it's more of a yearning to find out more about your culture and about who we are as African-Americans.
Can you talk about inspirations behind Flow and also what it means to have a guy like Herbie [Hancock] aboard?
What we were trying to do was deal with our own compositions in a very honest way and let the chips fall where they would. In terms of having Herbie producing, you can't ask for anything better. For him to take the time and agree to do it-just the acceptance of the project meant a lot to me. In the studio, he was amazing. He really challenged us to be who we were and not fall into the pitfalls of mediocrity. We had a great time, too. We'd record from 10 in the morning until 10 at night, and then we'd just talk until 2 a.m.
This band has been together for three or four years. What do you think is the importance of keeping a constant working band?
That's how music develops, that's how it evolves. Composition is one thing, but it's when the musicians start to add themselves that the music starts to develop. Take John Coltrane's group-it could have been any drummer, but the fact that it was Elvin Jones back there makes a huge difference.
Bottom line: Why should listeners come out Friday night, and what should they expect to hear?
They should come out because it's an interesting band to hear and it's a band full of young, talented, gifted musicians and the music is very honest. We try to do different things every night, hence the title of the record. That's where the title came from-Herbie told us to go in there and make up a song, and that's the result.
The Terence Blanchard Sextet will perform with the Duke Jazz Ensemble Friday at 8 p.m. in Page Auditorium. Tickets are available at www.tickets.duke.edu. The Duke Jazz Ensemble, the John Brown Quintet and several other bands will participate in Jazz on the Green Saturday afternoon on Main West Quadrangle.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.