Jazz Monthly.com Interview with Terence Blanchard

Smitty: Yeah, and you never want to stand still in one spot That’s cool, man. And I think it takes a great musician and a great ear and a great love for music to realize that you don’t want to stand still but you’ve seen the evolution of the music over the years and you realize that you’ve gotta move on to the next level. I think that’s a beautiful thing.

TB: Well, it is. I mean, you know, I feel very blessed to have had that experience here in New Orleans. Another thing I’m gonna tell you that’s really great is that the guys that I grew up listening to are all guys who never really made a lot of money but they did it because they loved it and they were very passionate and dedicated to it. So I didn’t grow up with this sense of being a musician to make money. I grew up with a sense of being a musician because you purely loved the music and wanted to be a part of that culture.

Smitty: Yes, man. Oh, you don’t know how much I love to hear you say that because when it comes from that deep within, then the rest takes care of itself.

TB: Yeah.

Smitty: You’ve gotta have that deep love from within to create great music and to enjoy it, and then anything else that comes along is a bonus.

TB: Yeah, I know, and that’s the thing because with me all your decisions are made totally based on your passion for music, not anything else. I mean, I grew up listening to guys, man, who made no money, but when I would go hear them in the French Quarter, they were constantly talking about music and that was my orientation into the business and I feel very blessed to have met those guys and to have the experience of their personalities musically growing up in the city.

Smitty: That’s a beautiful thing. You have been a very blessed man because you have played with some of the greats like Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard and Herbie Hancock. In fact, Herbie’s on this project. Talk about your experience of working with some of these cats and how that has really enhanced your career and your craft.

TB: Well, working with those guys has been amazing because Herbie Hancock, I mean, he’s a legend. And when it came time for us to do the project and he agreed to do it, I was just totally floored that he agreed to do it, but having him in the studio, man, it was a great thing, but even prior to that I’d been working with them at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (Performance), along with Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter, are all on the board and periodically whenever we’ve had certain types of auditions or different types of affairs, fundraisers or whatever, I would get a chance to speak to these guys and talk to them about music and get to know them, and that’s been a great learning experience. And then couple that with having Herbie produce the record and having him there to talk about our music was just a godsend. Every day we would record from ten in the morning to ten at night and then we would just hang out and talk to this cat until 2 a.m.

Smitty: Wow.

TB: He was always asking us questions, simple questions like “Who plays like you guys? So why worry about it?” You know what I mean?

Smitty: Yes.

TB: “Just go ahead and do your thing.” And that was a great motivating force to have around us at that particular point in time in our development because as a group we knew that we were having fun playing what we were doing, but to have a guy like that come along and then just kinda validate what you’re doing was really great for everybody involved.

Smitty: Yes indeed. He (Herbie Hancock) had a very nice compliment for you and I’m sure you’ve heard this, but I’m just gonna quote Herbie Hancock. He said of you, “One of the most exciting working bands in jazz today,” speaking of you and your band. What a compliment from a legend.

TB: Well, sir, that’s a great compliment, man. I mean, coming from a person who’s also had great bands. (Laughs.)

Smitty: Yeah.

TB: Know what I mean? I mean, not only is he a great musician, but he’s very much in line with that Miles Davis legacy of having great musicians in the group as well.

Smitty: Oh, man, yeah. Speaking of this band, do me a favor and just introduce the band and talk about these great cats, if you would.

TB: Well, I gotta start with Lionel Loueke because he’s one of our former students at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. He’s a guitarist who is from Benin, a small town called Cortino in Benin, and he’s just been a great addition to the group. He’s the type of musician who’s a visionary and innovator. While he’s very well versed in the tradition of jazz, that’s really not what he’s about. He’s all about fusing his heritage, his homeland’s music with the traditional forms of jazz, which makes for a unique mix and an interesting style. Brice Winston is a tenor saxophone player who’s from Tucson, Arizona, who’s been in the band the longest and he’s probably one of the most underrated guys in the band. He’s a brilliant musician, he has an amazing sound, amazing approach to improvisation, and he’s also a great writer, as you can hear on his tune “Child’s Play.” But when you listen to him play on Lionel’s tune “Wadagbe,” you can tell that this guy is a force to be reckoned with.

Kendrick Scott, the drummer in the band, I met him when he was 17 at the Betty Carter Jazz and Education Program, and he was just simply amazing then because I remember I went and heard the band that he was playing with and they were playing one of his compositions and I kept saying “Well, man, who wrote the tune?” And they said “The drummer,” and I was just totally floored. So not only is he a great composer, but he also brings that compositional style to the way that he plays the drums in terms of how he orchestrates his accompaniment playing on certain parts of the drums that creates certain sounds for different solos. Aaron Parks is a young pianist from Seattle, Washington. Kendrick is from Houston, by the way.

Smitty: All right!

TB: Aaron joined the band when he was 18. He was a college graduate at the time, but I met him along with Kendrick at that Betty Carter Jazz and Education Program, and Aaron was 15 at the time and he was holding his own back then. The interesting thing about Aaron’s involvement in the band is that by him being the youngest, when he joined the band he had just like a treasure trove full of compositions that he was bringing to the band, and I truly think that his involvement in bringing compositions to the band sparked curiosity for everybody else in the band ‘cause all of the other guys started to write. And he has a very rhythmic style to his compositions that are just very unique and, I think, very refreshing.

Now, Derrick Hodge is the bassist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Derrick is the guy who I think….I’ve always referred to him as the last piece to a perfect puzzle because he’s the last guy to join this particular group, but he made such a big difference and he had such an impact on how the band would even operate. When you listen to some of the things on the album, at the inception of some of the solos, Derrick would like just shift gears and he would play certain lines and he would deviate from the established lines that were composed for the tune and next thing you know he would be off in a different direction. And he also has great ears. Because he can follow along, he can come wherever you wanna go, then I could go there with you. And he’s also a great composer, as you can hear on his tune “Over There.”