Terence Oliver Blanchard (born March 13, 1962) is an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He has also written two operas and more than 80 film and television scores. Blanchard has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Original Score for BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020), both directed by Spike Lee, a frequent collaborator.

Blanchard started his career in 1980 playing in the Lionel Hampton Orchestra while studying jazz at Rutgers University. In 1982, just before he turned 20, he left Rutgers to join The Jazz Messengers, starting a professional career that has lasted over 40 years. The Metropolitan Opera in New York performed Blanchard’s opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones in its 2021–2022 season, making it the first opera by an African American composer in the organization’s history.

Blanchard is also an educational mentor. From 2000 to 2011, he was the artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. In 2011, he became the artistic director of the Henry Mancini Institute at the University of Miami. In 2015, he was a visiting scholar in jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music. In 2019, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), named Blanchard to its Endowed Chair in Jazz Studies, a position he held until 2023. In 2023, SFJAZZ announced Blanchard’s appointment as Executive Artistic Director. He leads the organization’s artistic programming and guides its creative direction.

Blanchard was selected as the 2024 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters.

Early life

Blanchard was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, as the only child of Wilhelmina and Joseph Oliver Blanchard. His father worked as a manager at an insurance company and also sang opera as a hobby.

At age five, Blanchard began playing the piano. When he was eight years old, he switched to the trumpet after hearing Alvin Alcorn perform at his school. He played the trumpet in summer music camps with his childhood friends, Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis.

Blanchard attended St. Augustine High School until he transferred to John F. Kennedy High School so he could go to the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, a special school for the arts. There, he studied with Roger Dickerson and Ellis Marsalis. From 1980 to 1982, he studied with jazz saxophonist Paul Jeffrey and trumpeter Bill Fielder at Rutgers University.

Career

While at Rutgers University, Blanchard started performing with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. In 1982, Wynton Marsalis suggested Blanchard to replace him in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and Blakey named Blanchard as the band's musical director. Alongside his friend from New Orleans, Donald Harrison, Blanchard performed and recorded five albums with the famous group.

In 1986, Blanchard and Harrison left the Jazz Messengers to form their own group, a quintet. The group included young musicians in the rhythm section: Cyrus Chestnut, Rodney Whitaker, and drummer Carl Allen. Their music inspired many young jazz musicians, such as Christian McBride, Nicholas Payton, Geoff Keezer, and Roy Hargrove.

In 1989, Blanchard stopped performing to fix the way he held his mouth while playing his instrument. A year later, he began his solo career. Columbia Records released his first album, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Jazz chart.

After working on soundtracks for Spike Lee's movies, including Do the Right Thing (1989) and Mo' Better Blues (1990), Lee asked Blanchard to compose the music for Jungle Fever (1991). Since then, Blanchard has written the scores for most of Spike Lee's films, such as Malcolm X (1992), Clockers (1995), Summer of Sam (1999), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), BlacKkKlansman (2018), and Da 5 Bloods (2020).

In addition to scoring Spike Lee's four-hour HBO documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006), Blanchard appeared onscreen with his mother to show their search for her destroyed home. A year later, Blue Note Records released Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina). The album includes music from the documentary and new songs, and it won a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.

Blanchard has also written music for other directors, including Gina Prince-Bythewood, Regina King, Taylor Hackford, Ron Shelton, and Kasi Lemmons. Entertainment Weekly called Blanchard "central to a general resurgence of jazz composition for film."

Blanchard recorded several award-winning albums for Columbia Records, including Simply Stated (1992), The Malcolm X Jazz Suite (1993), In My Solitude: The Billie Holiday Songbook (1994), Romantic Defiance (1995), and The Heart Speaks (1996), which featured Ivan Lins and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance.

In 1999, producer Peter Gelb signed Blanchard to the Sony Classical label and released Jazz In Film, which reunited Blanchard with Donald Harrison on three tracks. The album also included jazz legends Joe Henderson and Kenny Kirkland, who died shortly after the recording.

Blanchard's next album, Wandering Moon (2000), earned him another Grammy nomination and the honor of being named Downbeat Magazine's Artist of the Year.

In 2001, Blanchard released his third and final album for Sony Classical, Let's Get Lost. It included arrangements of songs by Jimmy McHugh performed by his quintet with guest vocalists Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, and Cassandra Wilson. His instrumental version of "Lost In A Fog" earned him another Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo.

In 2003, Blanchard signed with Blue Note Records and released Bounce, produced by Michael Cuscuna. Two years later, legendary pianist Herbie Hancock produced Flow, which received two more Grammy nominations.

Between the two Blue Note recordings, Blanchard performed on McCoy Tyner's Illuminations with Gary Bartz, Christian McBride, and Lewis Nash. The group won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.

Blanchard was a judge for the fifth annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists.

In Disney's 2009 film The Princess and the Frog, Blanchard played all the trumpet parts for the alligator character Louis. He also voiced the role of Earl, the bandleader in the riverboat band.

Fifteen years later, Blanchard was invited to create music for the theme park attraction Tiana's Bayou Adventure, inspired by The Princess and the Frog.

Blanchard made history when his opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones became the first opera by a Black composer to be performed by the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, opening the company's 2021–22 season.

A year later, the Met premiered another Blanchard opera, Champion, marking the first time since Richard Strauss that a living composer had two operas performed in consecutive seasons.

Print biography

In 2002, Scarecrow Press, which is part of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, released Contemporary Cat: Terence Blanchard with Special Guests, an official biography of Terence Blanchard written by Anthony Magro. The book includes many interviews with Blanchard and other well-known people in jazz and film, such as Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Spike Lee, Kasi Lemmons, and Michael Cristofer. A review by Choice Reviews stated: "Magro adds background information and connects the interviews so the book reads smoothly. History will see Blanchard as an important person in jazz, and the book strongly supports this view."

Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz

In the fall of 2000, Terence Blanchard became the artistic director of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz (previously known as the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Herbie Hancock is the chairman of the institute, and Wayne Shorter, Clark Terry, and Jimmy Heath are members of the board of trustees. The conservatory provides a free, two-year master's program for a small number of students, with no more than eight students accepted every two years.

As artistic director, Blanchard helps students develop their artistic skills, learn arranging and composition, and receive career guidance. He also teaches in master classes and takes part in community activities connected to the program. "I wanted to give back to the jazz community," Blanchard said. "If I were not a musician, I would want to be a teacher. I am proud to be part of this special program that creates a welcoming and open environment."

In April 2007, the Institute announced its "Commitment to New Orleans" plan, which includes moving the program to Loyola University New Orleans from Los Angeles. Blanchard strongly encouraged the institute to relocate, saying, "After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was damaged, and its musical traditions were at risk. I grew up in this city and learned jazz here at Loyola with other young musicians like Wynton and Branford Marsalis. I believe the Institute will help jazz and our communities grow again."

Other work

In 2007, the Monterey Jazz Festival named Terence Blanchard as Artist-In-Residence, stating he was "one of his generation’s most artistically mature and innovative artists and a committed supporter of jazz education." The festival’s 50th Anniversary Band, with Blanchard playing trumpet, toured the United States for 10 weeks, performing 54 shows from January 8, 2008, to March 16, 2008. The band included saxophonist James Moody, pianist Benny Green, bassist Derrick Hodge, drummer Kendrick Scott, and jazz singer Nnenna Freelon.

In December 2007, the Terence Blanchard Quintet performed music from a movie by Spike Lee and Terence Blanchard with an orchestra and singers Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, and Raul Midón at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

In November 2008, Blanchard appeared as a guest on Private Passions, a radio show about music and musicians on BBC Radio 3.

On February 10, 2008, Blanchard won his first Grammy Award as a bandleader for A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) in the category of Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. He also won two other Grammy Awards as a supporting musician for Art Blakey (1984) and McCoy Tyner (2004).

Blanchard composed original music for Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Broadway play The Motherfucker With the Hat, which opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on April 11, 2011. The play is described as "a high-energy verbal competition about love, loyalty, and misplaced clothing."

On January 20, 2012, the film Red Tails was released in the United States. Blanchard composed the original score, marking his first collaboration with executive producer George Lucas.

He also composed background music for the 2012 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Blanchard released the album Magnetic on May 28, 2013, through Blue Note Records.

In 2015, his album Breathless, created with his new band, The E-Collective, was released by Blue Note Records on May 26. The album includes contributions from PJ Morton of Maroon 5 and JRei Oliver, Terence’s son. The core band includes Fabian Almazan on keyboards, Charles Altura on guitar, Donald Ramsey on bass, and Oscar Seaton on drums. An article titled "Using Music to Underscore Three Words: I Can't Breathe" by Blanchard was published on Medium, explaining how the death of Eric Garner and the "I Can't Breathe" movement inspired the album’s music.

On November 9, 2019, Blanchard performed with Lady Gaga as a guest during her Jazz and Piano show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

On June 15, 2013, after a workshop with Opera Fusion: New Works, Blanchard premiered his first opera, Champion, at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. The opera tells the story of prize-fighting boxer Emile Griffith from St. Thomas and features a script by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael Cristofer. The opera starred Denyce Graves, Aubrey Allicock, Robert Orth, and Arthur Woodley. Champion premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 2023, winning the Grammy for Best Opera Recording, and opened at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2024.

On June 15, 2019, Blanchard’s second opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, with a script by Kasi Lemmons, premiered at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Based on Charles Blow’s 2014 memoir of the same name, the opera included added dance scenes and a larger role for Billie, Charles’s mother. It opened the Metropolitan Opera’s 2021–2022 season and closed the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2021–2022 mainstage season. Blanchard is the first Black composer to have an opera performed at the Metropolitan Opera.

Discography

A full list of jazz recordings led by Blanchard.

• Oh-By the Way (Timeless, 1982)
• New York Scene (Concord, 1984) – live
• Blue Night (Timeless, 1985)

• 1990: As Long as There's Music (Muse, 1993)
• 1997: Roots (Astor Place, 1997)

• Joanne Brackeen, Fi-Fi Goes to Heaven (Concord Jazz, 1987) – rec. 1986
• Terri Lyne Carrington, Jazz Is a Spirit (ACT, 2002) – rec. 2001
• Kenny Drew Jr., The Rainbow Connection (Evidence, 1988)
• Robert Glasper, Double-Booked (Blue Note, 2009) – voice in 1 track
• Benny Green, Prelude (Criss Cross Jazz, 1988)
• Ralph Moore, Images (Landmark, 1989) – rec. 1988
• Gregory Porter, Nat King Cole & Me (Blue Note, 2017) – 2 tracks

Awards and honors

Blanchard has received many awards and honors, including five Grammy Awards. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Score for the movies BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). He has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.