ABOVE PHOTO: Terence Blanchard
Photo courtesy: Ensemble Arts Philly
By Kharisma McIlwaine
New Orleans is known for its deep-rooted love and celebration of music. It is also known for giving the world a wide array of incredible musicians, and Terence Blanchard is among them.
The six-time Grammy award-winning, Academy Award-nominated trumpeter, pianist and composer has blessed the music world with a collection of jazz albums, over 40 film and television scores. He is now making history as the first Black composer to have their opera presented at the Metropolitan Opera in its 138-year history. Blanchard spoke with the SUN about his musical journey and the double-edged sword of making history with his opera, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.”
Blanchard’s love for music blossomed early on.
“From the time that I was a kid I really loved playing music,” he said. “I used to sit down at the piano when I was about 5 years old and try to bang out “Batman” on the piano and didn’t know what I was doing. That’s how my piano lessons started actually. My parents said if this kid is going to do this, we might as well get him some lessons so he can play some melodies we can listen to.”
The transition to trumpet came shortly thereafter.
“There was a guy named Alvin Alcorn,” Blanchard said. “I have a picture of him in my studio. Alvin came to my elementary school and gave a demonstration about traditional New Orleans music. I remember hearing the trumpet and thinking the piano doesn’t do notes like that.
The piano doesn’t bend notes like that, there’s no vibrato like that — it had a very vocal-like quality. The problem was when I went home and told my dad that I wanted to play the trumpet and he had just rented an upright piano for me to have at the house.”
Although Blanchard’s love for music never wavered, he also had dreams of playing football. After his father saw a documentary about football and concussions, he stopped Blanchard from playing.
“I had just gotten selected for the all-city football team here before you go to high school that travels in the region, he said. “I was excited about it, and he said, ‘No more’ — that was it. So, then music became a focal point. I think I was in 6th or 7th grade. Music became it. I loved it and I wanted to do it as a career. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I had great teachers that opened some doors for me in terms of what I needed to work on and the tools I needed to have.”
Although Blanchard’s musical journey began with him performing, he desired to be a composer as well.
“I knew I wanted to compose, I just didn’t know how it was going to happen,” he said. “At first, I kept thinking it was going to be me writing stuff for my ensembles. But then the film thing opened up other doors.”
He got his start working on films with the legendary Spike Lee scoring films such as “Jungle Fever, “Crooklyn,” “Malcolm X,” “BlacKKKlansman” and “Da 5 Bloods.” To date, he has scored over 40 films and tv shows including “Love and Basketball,” “Barbershop,” “Cadillac Records,”, “Perry Mason,” “Harriet” and “The Woman King.”
Terence Blanchard with The E-Collective and Turtle Island Quartet
Photo courtesy: Ensemble Arts Philly
“It was an amazing journey — it still is,” Blanchard said. “Spike is the guy who got me into it, obviously. Working with him already kind of made me have to have a forward-thinking kind of mind with the way he shot his films. He didn’t like underscoring. He liked very thick, melodic, thematic material for all of his films. It was really great because it forced me to figure out how to do this and have these melodies play without interrupting dialogue. It’s kind of interesting now because whenever I look at Spike’s films there’s a certain type of signature sound to them because of that.”
Growing up in New Orleans, Blanchard was surrounded by phenomenal musicians, including his father. This greatly shaped his appreciation for various genres of music, especially jazz and opera.
“Well, you know the thing about growing up here in New Orleans — man, it gives you a false sense of reality, because you think the whole country is like this until you leave and you go, ‘Wait a minute, woah, what’s going on?’” Blanchard said. “When you sit back it really makes you appreciate all of the great musicians you would hear just at parties. Of course, seeing all of the brass bands had a huge effect on me. Then my father loved opera. He was an amateur baritone. He would play all the classic operas in the house. Hearing all of those melodies obviously has had an impact on me too. I think it’s really important when you’re growing up in these cultures like this to expose kids to all of the things that they can experience to help mold their minds.”
Blanchard’s exposure to various genres of music has allowed him to create seamlessly between genres and paint outside the box in his musical compositions. His opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” based on the memoir written by Charles M. Blow of the same name, does just that.
“When we were doing the opera “Fire” at The Met, I had conversations here in my house with Karen Slack and a dear friend of mine who passed away that was a great baritone,” Blanchard said. “His name was Arthur Woodley. I listened to them talk about how what we were doing with “Champion” at the time was so refreshing for them because some of them grew up in the church, but when it came time to sing Puccini or Verdi, they were told to turn that stuff off. So what we decided to do with my operas, we want to bring all of that stuff and use it as a tool. I love it. We’re not trying to pigeonhole ourselves — we’re actually trying to define what American opera is.”
Blanchard made history as the first Black composer to have their opera performed at The Metropolitan Opera, an accomplishment he views as a paradox.
“That one is a blessing and a curse a little bit,” he said. “It’s a blessing to have that honor obviously, but I don’t want people to get sidetracked by that without acknowledging the people that were qualified before me. There was a leger that was brought to me of rejected productions, and William Grant Still’s name is in there three times. What was interesting was one of the operas that was rejected was an opera that I heard in St. Louis called “Highway One.” I didn’t know who had written it. I’m thinking about how current it sounded and I found out it was written in the 30’s.”
“Then when I saw that he was rejected for the same opera, it blew me away — and the comments made were very disrespectful,” Blanchard continued. “The wild part about it is that here I come along and I’m starting to write some things for opera, that frankly, some of the orchestras have a problem playing rhythmically. What I’ve written is not difficult, it just comes from a certain aesthetic and language. If you would’ve accepted William Grant Still’s piece, that language would’ve become a part of your lexicon. So, it’s an interesting thing — that moniker being the first African American. I always want to have a huge asterisk by it, because I may be the first, but I’m certainly not the first qualified.”
Blanchard continues to receive a warm reception with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and its blend of jazz, opera, Blow’s story, and social commentary.
“It’s a blessing,” he said. “I was all prepared to use the excuse, ‘That’s not my world anyway — I’m a jazz musician.’ I was prepared to go back to my corner and stay in my lane. It became a blessing for me because I realized this is part of my destiny because of my father and the stuff I would hear growing up. All of that experience is coming back to me in a way that I would’ve never imagined. I got emotional one day hearing baritones warm up around the room because it was what my dad used to do. Now the interesting thing is to go to the performances and see such a diverse audience. People coming to opera because they see themselves on the stage and they can relate to the stories. It’s a huge blessing and it’s an opportunity I don’t take lightly. People have been coming to the shows with a certain amount of excitement, but trust as well, and I don’t want to betray that trust as a composer.”
Blanchard will be performing jazz-curated arias from “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” at Verizon Hall April 7 at 5:00pm. For more information, visit: www.ensembleartsphilly.org and follow Blanchard on IG @terence_blanchard.
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