2008 Woodie Awards
Q&A with Terence Blanchard
AUDIO: A conversation with a Grammy award-winning jazz musician
Katie Dolan, Staff Writer
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Grammy award-winning musician Terence Blanchard visited Whitworth Nov. 9-10, leading a jazz clinic and performing on stage with the Whitworth Jazz Ensemble. (See "Visiting musician and Jazz Ensemble burst with dynamic sound")
The following is a transcript from an interview by Katie Dolan of The Whitworthian with Grammy award-winning musician Terence Blanchard conducted on Nov. 9 in a Music Building office.
Q: When did you start playing trumpet and become interested in jazz?
A: I started playing the trumpet when I was in the fourth grade in elementary school because of a guy named Alvin Alcorn who came to the school and he gave like a little demonstration of New Orleans traditional jazz. So I guess you could say from that point I was kind of interested in jazz. It really didn't hit me till I was about 15 or 16, when I started going to NOCCA (New Orleans Center of Creative Arts) and started hearing Clifford Brown and Miles Davis.
Q: Are there any other artists that influenced you early on in your career or currently influence your work?
A: Well, Miles and Clifford were the first, but, I mean, I've listened to a number of people. You know, when you're thinking about the history of jazz, obviously Art Blakey because I played with him for four years. Clark Terry. Clark Terry came to my school and gave master classes. And also, Milt Hinton was another great influence.
Q: What is the message you want to achieve through your new album, "A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina)"?
A: I think for me what I'm trying to do is, well, first of all, when writing music for the documentary, I tried to write music that was more universal. I wanted the story to seem like a more - to have a broader appeal. I knew that Spike was going to cover New Orleans music with prerecorded stuff. So when it came time to do the CD, I wanted to put together something that was more of a reflective piece of music, that would appeal again to a broader audience, but give people a chance to reflect on what happened in New Orleans, 'cause it's not just something that just can happen there; it's something that can happen anywhere.
Q: Are the tracks on the album inspired by or dedicated to specific people or events involved with Katrina?
A: It's all dedicated to the events of Katrina. The one piece, "Dear Mom," is something that's specifically written for one person, written for her. But the entire body of work, I guess, if it was written for a specific person it would be the city of New Orleans. You know, the city itself has a personality and a culture because of all the different cultures that exist. It's hard to explain, if you've ever been there you'll know what I'm talking about, but it's like another country inside of this country. So the CD itself is something that I dedicated to the city that I love so much.
Q: Where do you find inspiration for your music?
A: It comes through daily life, it comes through everything, you know. The other night I was at home watching my kids play, you know, and that becomes inspiring, just watching them grow up, just to think about the whole magic of life and the cycle of life. So it can come from anywhere, it can come from just sitting here checking out this beautiful scenery here in this city. I think it's not so much where inspiration comes from; it's really more about you accepting it. Because what happens is, is that, you know, we think that our careers and our lives are supposed to be a certain way, but we all struggle with who we are versus who we want to be, you know what I mean? And I think inspiration is always around us, the problem is we look for a specific type of thing, you know, and that may not be our calling. Our calling may be something else that's staring you right in the face but you're trying to ignore because you're looking in another direction.
Q: What do you find most challenging as a musician?
A: I think the thing I find most challenging is just trying to be honest. Struggling, you know, Art Blakey used to say playing jazz is a struggle between your brain and your heart. I think that's the toughest thing because if you have a great night your brain will say, "Man that was killin' last night. Let's do that again tonight." But that moment has passed, you know, so you have to kind of accept that and move on. But intellectually you know that what you played last night really worked. But the thing is it's a different moment, everybody's senses are different, everybody's feeling differently about the music that next night. So, if you tried to play what you played last night, it isn't going to work, 'cause the drummer's in another spot, the piano player's in another place, you know what I mean? So you have to take all of that into consideration.
Q: What do you enjoy most about performing?
A: The thing that I enjoy most about performing is the discovery that occurs when you're on the bandstand. When you're on the bandstand with like musicians, musicians that are like-minded, there's a certain kind of magic that can happen that you can't even explain. I guess the closest thing I could use to illustrate that is like, you know, when you watch a great basketball team of five guys, and everything just seems to click. The ball just seems to bounce their way. It's kind of like that, there's no explaining it but it just seems to kind of flow very easily.
Q: How does music affect you?
A: Music affects me in various ways. There's music, you know, I think that's what it should do. There's music that makes me laugh sometimes when I hear it, there's music that makes me reflect sometimes when I hear it. There's music that just makes me dance. I was just listening to something before we left and I was in my room grooving, by myself, 'cause it was killer. It was one of those moments you're glad nobody's looking.
Q: You just released a new album, so what's next?
A: Trying to figure out what the next album is going to be. And I shouldn't say "trying to figure it out" 'cause we never try to figure out what the albums are going to be, of late. I mean what we've been doing is just playing music and allowing it to evolve. And that's been the great thing about having the band that I have. These guys are extremely creative. It's been a joy playing with them and sharing this moment in time with them because we have a lot of fun discovering ourselves through music.
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