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RELATED LINKS

• Mr. Blanchard's official site
• "The Making of Terence Blanchard's New CD 'Choices' - Webisode One"
• Thelonious Monk Institute
• Mr. Blanchard's bio

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Web Exclusive: How one of the most influential jazz musicians of his generation segued into the film business. (3:10)
 

Full interview. (13:30)
 

Tavis: Terence Blanchard is a Grammy-winning musician and composer out now with a follow-up to his Katrina-themed CD, "A Tale of God's Will." The new project is called "Choices." In just a few minutes, he'll be joined by his band for a special performance; two songs, in fact. But first, Terence, good to have you on the program.

Terence Blanchard: Hey, man. It's good to be here.

Tavis: Good to see you. In a good way, you are obviously obsessed with your hometown, obsessed with Katrina when, four years later, a lot of folk have Katrina fatigue. Why for you this obsession?

Blanchard: Well, because New Orleans has given me so much throughout my life, you know. When I was growing up there, I would hear traditional music. But then I would go home and I'd listen to more progressive stuff like Miles Davis and Clifford Brown. So immediately I could see that there was some kind of transition in the history of the music.

And then just in general, it's a warm place, the people are beautiful and it's just a human place. So for me, I want to go back and do whatever I can to make it a better place.

Tavis: How does one - I mean, I know how you do it because I can hear it here. I'm asking a process question, I guess. How does one go about putting those feelings, those emotions, into music?

Blanchard: Well, the first thing you have to do is trust yourself and you have to be honest. One of the things I tell my students is that you always struggle between who you want to be and who you really are. In this particular world, you have to kind of toss that first thing aside and just come to terms with who you are.

The more that you do that, the more honest you are, the more that those things will start to reflect themselves in your music. For me where I am right now, music is much more than notes and chords. It really is all about trying to tell stories, you know, trying to convey emotions and attitudes.

Tavis: You said that you have to be honest with yourself first. Let me ask you to do that on national television (laughter), to be honest with me about how you feel about Katrina, about the politics surrounding it, about the slow - I mean, whatever your feelings are about your hometown. Tell me honestly what you feel about it.

Blanchard: I was highly upset. I was angry, you know, at what happened. I mean, to think that we were left in the lurch by our own government was something that I could never foresee happening, to think that - it just felt like we didn't matter.

I felt like I couldn't let that happen in my little corner of the world, so I tried to do whatever I could to scream to high heaven, you know, at the injustices that were going on. So that was the reason why we did this other CD, "A Tale of God's Will," to kind of chronicle some of the events that happened in New Orleans.

I think it's incumbent upon us to understand that part of the reason why we were in that situation is because we didn't take the responsibility to hold our leaders' feet to the fire. I think that's the main thing that I learned from this process is to get involved, not just sit on the sidelines, and speak out and make sure that, when you see injustice, say something about it.

Tavis: You referenced "A Tale of God's Will," which a lot of that music you scored for Spike's film, his documentary.

Blanchard: Yes.

Tavis: When the Levees Broke, as you have done for just about every other Spike Lee film.

Blanchard: Yes.

Tavis: But why the title, "A Tale of God's Will" for that first CD? Then I'll come to this one.

Blanchard: Well, you know, in the midst of the aftermath of the hurricane, I went through a lot of different types of emotions like a lot of other people; anger, resentment, hurt, hopelessness, helplessness, you know.

At the end of the day, you know, I grew up in the church and the only thing that I was left with was "God will never put anything on you that you can't handle." So I had to sit down and reflect and think about, well, what are the lessons are that we need to learn from this situation?

When I started to put together the CD, we were actually in the studio, man, recording the opening track to that thing and I hadn't come up with a title yet. As the guys were playing, those words started to kind of reveal themselves in my mind. So I could hear this chant, this is a tale of God's will. It started to become very clear to me, you know, what the CD should be about and what the whole experience of dealing of Katrina should be about for all of us.

It's like this is our opportunity to take all of the things that we were upset with in New Orleans, the things that we were angered by, and we were given a clean slate. Now's the time to make things better, do whatever we can to make them so much better that the city would not only be better, but be different.

Tavis: You and I have known each other for years, so you know me. I'm always fascinated by the backstory. When you say that you started out in the church, so many other astounding and amazing Black artists have in fact started in the same place, the church. But I'm always curious. What was the journey of the story from the church to jazz artist?

Blanchard: Well, you know, it's funny. When I was a kid, I played in church every Sunday. Then when I started playing jazz gigs, my dad was like, "Look, man. I don't care. You can play those gigs, but you got to be in church on Sunday morning." (laughter) So I'd be coming in like five o'clock Sunday morning, man, and my dad would be waking me up saying, "Yeah, I told you you need to be in church." So I played every Sunday.

It was an interesting transition because, for me, I saw it as a natural thing. I saw, you know, when you would hear gospel or when you would hear blues or jazz, all of those things related to me. They seemed to come from the same place emotionally, a burning desire to express yourself. I will cherish that time in my life, you know, because it made me who I am and it helped develop my belief system.

Tavis: Tell me what kind of church you grew up in because I know there's some folk watching now who hear what you do now and are trying to put that in a Black church setting. What were you blowing in church?

Blanchard: (Laughter) Well, I didn't play this in church. I went to a Congregational Church. Actually, you know, Andrew Young was a member of the church when he was in New Orleans.

Tavis: Oh, yeah.

Blanchard: Yeah, he was a member of the church. So it was a Congregational Church and we played a lot of classical music and a lot of hymns and arias and stuff like that at church, but Saturday night was when we were really doing our thing.

Tavis: Yeah, yeah (laughter). I should have been at the Congregational Church. Pentecostal Church, I couldn't go out on Saturday nights, waiting to be in church on Sunday morning. Sorry, mom, that's a whole different conversation.

Speaking of my mom, your mom, we recall from Spike's documentary, made an appearance in the film. Tell me about your mom.

Blanchard: Well, you know, I was very proud of her for doing that because I didn't know that was gonna happen. We were in the studio doing the music to Inside Man and I was out in the studio with the orchestra and she was in the control room. When I walked into the control room to listen to a playback, Spike said, "We're gonna film your momma going into her home." I said, "Okay, cool." Then I went and I talked to my momma later on.

I said, "Well, do you realize what that's gonna entail? I mean, you know, this is a very private moment. There's gonna be a lot of people there. There's gonna be cameras everywhere." She said, "I figured that, but I think people need to see what we're going through." One of the things in my travels after that, I mean, people around the world have been very supportive of my mom and I always get a lot of reactions to that part of the documentary.

But the thing that I always tell people is that, you know, if you cried for my mother, you have to multiply that by 300,000 people because that's the reaction that all of those people had coming back and seeing their homes destroyed. You know, that was a hard thing. It was really like losing a family member, you know, to go in that home and to have no pictures, no clothing, no furniture, nothing.

When I brought my mom out to Los Angeles - I'll tell you a funny story. I couldn't find my mom for two weeks after the hurricane and I'd been calling her cell phone and calling her cell phone. When I finally got her, I said, "Mom, I've been calling you for two weeks." She said, "I heard that thing buzzing in my purse, but I didn't know what it was." (Laughter)

Tavis: (Laughter) She done survived the worst storm ever and she heard something buzzing in her purse (laughter).

Blanchard: But the thing that was really hard, man, the thing that was hard was when I finally got her out to Los Angeles and put her in an apartment out there was to take her shopping, you know, for toiletries, like plates, cups, bathroom stuff, bedding. I mean, it was like she was a college student because she didn't have anything and we basically had to start all over. It was rough and that's another reason why I'm very passionate about my city because, with all of that, people still want to go home.

The guy who was renovating her home, he told me that he was doing a lot of the homes in the neighborhood and most of those folks were elderly folks. He told them, since the house is gutted, we could do a lot of revisions, we could make your home better, and he said that 90% of the people said, "Can you just make it like it was?"

Tavis: Wow, that's amazing. I'm gonna put you on the spot right quick, then I'm gonna come back to the project before I let you guys do your thing which I want to hear.

I know a lot of trumpet players, of course, like you, Skain, Wynton and a bunch of other people I've been fortunate to know and befriend in my lifetime. I'm always curious when I get close to you all. I always lean in real close because I want to - you know where I'm going with this.

Blanchard: Uh-oh. Yeah.

Tavis: I lean in real close because I want to see how that trumpet has made your lips change.

Blanchard: Yeah, I know. It's not pretty (laughter).

Tavis: Yeah. I really - I'm up close and Jonathan can't see this, but I can see how that trumpet right on the top of your lip has made your lip change. I've seen it on Wynton's lip; I've seen it on other peoples' lips. How much do you have to love an instrument to play it so much that it changes the form of your lip?

Blanchard: I call it a sickness.

Tavis: Yeah.

Blanchard: It's a sickness.

Tavis: A beautiful sickness, though.

Blanchard: Yeah. I mean, I love it. The thing about it is sometimes when you get to that point when you're playing a trumpet or playing any instrument and you don't feel like you're playing an instrument, you feel like you're singing or expressing yourself, this goes away. You're not even aware of it. I'm only aware of it when (laughter) people make me aware of it. I mean, it's just part of what it is that we do. It's like boxers.

Tavis: I was about to say the same thing, yeah. That's my point. I didn't intend to cast aspersions.

Blanchard: No, no. Sure, no.

Tavis: You got to really love something.

Blanchard: Oh, yeah.

Tavis: You know, it's got to be a part of who you are to allow it to shape you in strange ways as you shape it. Speaking of shaping, the difference between "Choices" and "A Tale,"although both are connected to Katrina, is what?

Blanchard: "Choices" is all about, you know, the choices we make in life, the choices that I made as a father, as a husband, as a productive person in the community, the choices that we made as a community.

I started thinking about what I was telling you earlier about how the community of New Orleans, we didn't hold our leaders' feet to the fire and that was some of the choices that we made, to not be involved, and we suffered the consequences as a result. Same thing with the country, you know, in terms of this fiscal issue that we have, then healthcare issues, all of those things. So I wanted to just raise some debate about those topics.

The other thing too is that we have made some great choices in the aftermath of Katrina. There are a lot of positive things that are going on in New Orleans. New Orleans is gonna be one of the most green cities in the country. You know, the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz moved to New Orleans. Herbie Hancock is the Director; I'm the Artistic Director. We're building a new performance space in the U.S. Mint.

There are a lot of great things that are happening, so those are the good choices that we've made. I had the distinct pleasure and honor of enlisting the help of your best friend -

Tavis: - Dr. West, yeah.

Blanchard: Dr. West, to give us a spoken word performance. He was amazing to be around. We talked about an hour and what you hear on the CD is just basically some excerpts from that conversation.

Tavis: How do you take commentary - because he's on here, but so is Bilal.

Blanchard: Yes.

Tavis: How do you take commentary and work around it? Same as film? Different than film? Different process?

Blanchard: I think it's very similar to film and I think my experience in film helped me in terms of putting this CD together because what I had to do was just listen to the conversation over and over and try to figure out, you know, which statements and which segments really best reflect what was happening on certain tunes.

Then even when I started to cut them in, I had to space them out and find the right areas for them to operate, you know, in certain tunes. I mean, I didn't have to do much because Dr. West, he's amazing.

Tavis: You'll get a chance to see in just a second what Terence is talking about with regard to the commentary from Dr. West. He and his band are gonna get together here in just a second and do two songs for us. Let me tell you right quick. If you go to our website at PBS.org/Tavis - I'm gonna ask Terence since I'm out of time here now because I want to hear them perform - as you know, this guy's scored over 50 films, over 50 films he has scored.

He has two exciting projects, one with George Lucas coming out. I want to ask Terence about his work on these films that are about to come out on the sound score. We'll talk about that on the website at PBS.org. For now, though, Terence, good to see you.

Blanchard: Hey, good to see you too, man.

Tavis: I'm gonna make room for you guys to do your thing.

Blanchard: All right. Thank you.

Tavis: Up next, a couple of songs from the Terence Blanchard Group. Stay with us.

From the new CD, "Choices," here is the Terence Blanchard Group performing two new songs, the title track, "Choices," and "A New World." Enjoy.