Production and distribution of City Club forums and ideastream public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Tuesday, May 21st.

My name is Dan Moulthrop.

I'm the chief executive here at the City Club and really pleased to introduce our speaker, who's in town for an appearance tonight with the Cleveland Orchestra's Mandel Opera and Humanities Festival.

Terence Blanchard.

It's yeah.

Yeah.

For real.

It's hard to know how to introduce someone like Terence Blanchard.

There are musicians, even famous ones.

And then there's Terence Blanchard.

Sure.

He plays the trumpet.

He also plays the piano.

He also composes.

But he doesn't just compose, brings ideas to life.

He gives voice.

For instance, take his work scoring films for Spike Lee.

Spike Lee is a visionary director.

As a composer, though, Blanchard comes in, provides a musical context for the movie, whether it's Jungle Fever or Malcolm X or Five Bloods or Black Klansman.

And that musical context doesn't just enhance the film.

It moves the work into your heart.

And of course, film scores are just one of the many genres that Blanchard exploits to help us feel the whole of human experience.

In recent years, he's written two operas.

Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on Charles Blow's memoir, searing memoir by the same name and champion, based on the career of welterweight champion boxer Emile Griffith.

They've both been performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Blanchard began playing in his teenage years with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra.

By the eighties, he was playing with Art Blakely's Jazz Messengers.

And in the years since, he's managed to collect eight Grammy Awards along the way.

Today, we have the privilege of hearing directly from Terence Blanchard on power on his own artistry and what it means to use music to address social challenges.

Moderating our conversation is a great friend of the city clubs, Jeff Johnson.

He's managing director at Acton and a former producer and reporter beat.

If you have questions for Terence Blanchard and you're joining us on the livestream, you can text those questions to 3305415794.

The numbers 3305415794.

And we'll work it into the second half of the program.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Terence Blanchard.

Thank you.

So, Brother Blanchard, welcome to Cleveland.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Glad that you're here.

I think an even more excited and I think for many in the audience that you are partnering with the amazing Cleveland Orchestra around this series that in many cases is centering the Magic Flute.

Sure.

And so for those who don't know The Magic Flute, because you all look like Mozart fans.

But I'm not sure the the Magic Flute, I think, is is incredibly deceptive in a lot of ways.

If you don't know classical music, it can feel whimsical.

Mm hmm.

But the themes that are in it.

And Terrence and I were talking backstage about my seven year old Baldwin, who loves all music, and and we're listening to it.

And he said, Well, what's this story about?

And I said, Oh, man, it's it's it's it's got mystics and it's got warriors and it's got fantasy and it's good and evil land.

And we talk about animals all the time.

And I said, Well, if it was an animal, what would it.

Be?

I love this.

And he said, A dolphin.

I say, Well, why do you say that?

He said, Because it looks happy, but it could kill a shark.

And there is something special about The Magic Flute that gives us the opportunity to talk about the breadth and depth of power.

Yes.

And what it means.

And so I want us just to have a conversation, because it was it was interesting listening to Dan talk about your all your accolades.

And I think the only thing you haven't been nominated for is a Tony.

Yeah.

So we got to work on that.

We've we we have an amazing theater here known as Karamu Tony.

We got Tony, we got to work on getting a Tony.

So let's talk about that.

We're actually working on it right now, but I have an update of.

My.

Fall.

Yeah.

Yeah, I didn't know that.

I didn't know that was something I was supposed to.

All right.

Well, we'll get we'll get there.

But but I'm curious, because in all of that, right.

And all of those accolades and awards and the two operas, and I think you've done over 81 compositions of TV and movies.

Yeah.

When it all comes down to it, though, you're really just a kid.

Joseph and Wilhemina from New.

Orleans, man.

You know, that's the most amazing part about it.

And the thing that I try to tell young people all the time, I'm like, I'm no different than you.

If I'm doing this, you can be doing this.

You know, I grew up in a household where my father loved opera, you know, and it just goes to show you how things like stick with you from from an early age.

You know, my memories of my father listening to his opera recordings were as soon as he would put them on, he would hit door slamming in the house.

You know what I mean?

Okay.

Yeah.

You would hear door slamming in the house because you had doors slamming in the house because everybody was trying to find some peace and quiet.

And he would just be sitting in the front singing to his heart's content, you know, and he was a baritone.

And come to find out years later, when I started doing film work, you know, people start talking about my melodic sense and how I write, you know?

And it hit me one day hearing Carmen, you know, and I went, I've heard this so much.

When I was a kid, I started to realize that that operatic world kind of shaped my sensibility about how to write melody.

Hmm.

It's funny, you know, because it all goes back to my dad.

You know, my dad was brilliant, man, but he he he grew up at a time where he wasn't going to get an opportunity to sing, you know, opera or anything like that.

But it didn't deter his passion for it.

Mm hmm.

Or just music in general.

I remember my cousin got a drum set, man.

And, you know, we were trying to play the James Brown beat on the drums.

You know what I mean?

That was our thing, you know?

Boom, boom.

We thought we were so cool.

And he came and he said, That's not the way you play drums.

Let me show you how to play drums.

You got to get this going.

And you got he did four, four on the bass drum and then two or four on a high hat.

And we thought that was some of the corny and stuff we always saw, man.

We laughed and he got out of Want to learn and got up off the drums and went away, right?

I was like maybe 12 or 13.

So now I'm 19 years old.

I'm playing with Art Blakey in Europe and we play Moanin as soon as it gets to the Bridge of Morning, what do I see Art Blakey do for four on bass?

Drum two?

That was that was one of the most painful phone calls I had to make.

And he really enjoyed it.

But, you know, it's it's it's it's one of those things where I try to tell people, you know, I try to tell young people, you don't know everything that your parents have gone through because some of that stuff they try to shield you from, you know.

But in my case, I know that my parents had my best interests at heart.

You know, when I look back on it, they were at every recital.

They took me to my lessons, you know, made sure that I had lessons, made sure that I had.

And I was playing piano from the time I was five years old.

And there was a guy named Alvin Alcorn who came to my elementary school when I was in fourth grade there just did a demonstration of playing New Orleans traditional music on a trumpet, and all I heard was the trumpet, and I went home and told my dad that I want to play the trumpet.

Just after he rented a piano for me to have in the house.

Wow.

He forgot he was a Christian that day.

I had said, you know, but his thing was his thing was, you know, I'll get you the horn, but you better practice, you better work at it.

And then years later, we're coming off the highway and we get to a red light.

And there's Alvin Alcorn in a car next to us.

And I go, Dad, that's the dude.

He's the reason why I'm playing the trumpet.

My dad goes, Oh, that's Al.

I'm like, You know, him rolled on the window and we had a quick conversation.

AL Hey, how you doing?

Say, Al, you think you could teach my kid how to play the trumpet?

I play jazz, right?

And I got excited.

I'm like, Oh, man, I'm a get lost.

He said, Nah, he's got to learn how to do that for himself.

Hmm.

And I was crushed.

I was really crushed.

But the more and more I think about it, it was probably the best thing for me to hear because, you know, there's no there's no gimmes in this.

You know, you have to put forth the effort, you know, to win, especially when you have talent.

You know, the thing that I try to tell kids, if you have a God given talent, it's your duty to develop it to its fullest because we don't know where that's going to go.

But talk about that a little bit, because I think that one of the one of the most powerful things that we have is storytelling.

And I want to talk about that in your music, but I'm I'm curious to know what was that thing?

Because we've talked about our kids the whole time we were backstage.

And what was the thing that made you hungry for it?

Because everyone with talent doesn't necessarily have the bug to search for mastery.

You know what it is?

It was it was having a yearning to say something and didn't know how to say it.

You know, it was I was a kid, you know, that was kind of like that's what I did first set up in my bones.

I can relate to the the whole notion of being ostracized in your own community.

I was a smart kid that wore glasses and carried a horn to the bus stop on the weekend.

Not the most popular thing to do in my neighborhood.

You know, when everybody else was playing football and doing some stuff and I played football too.

I was an athlete and all of that.

But, you know, there was always something inside of me and my composition teacher, Roger DICKERSON.

When I went to New Orleans, he gave a speech at a function very similar to this.

And he said from the very beginning, you could tell the tenants had a fire in his belly, you know, to tell a story.

And I didn't realize that until he said that right.

But it brings me to something else that I think is important to talk about is mentorship.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my mentors.

You know, in a relationship that I've had with them.

Ellis Marsalis was a guy who taught me when I was a kid.

Roger DICKERSON is the guy that taught me everything.

Everything.

He's the guy that, you know, taught me how to write, gave me the confidence to do it.

And when every time I had a big shift in my life, when Spike called me to score films, I called him.

You know, I say, Hey, man, I got this project.

You know what he told me?

Trust your training I like now, but that's not what I want to hear.

I'm like, Tell me how to start, what to do in the middle and how to defend this, you know?

And then when they call me to do an opera, I call them again, you know.

And his his words to me was, don't think of writing an opera, tell a story, you know.

And to this day, man, there's a picture that I just posted on my Instagram about a month ago of Branford Marsalis, Roger myself, having dinner because Branford had just moved back to New Orleans and we all went out to dinner.

And it was amazing.

He's still teaching us.

He's 92 years old and he he he just still will say things that resonate.

And, you know, the thing that I love about him is that he's always been about the art.

When I became a film composer, I wanted to hire him just as an orchestrator.

After him, the orchestrate, but just so I could give him a check, you know what I mean?

And he said, no.

He said, You're gaining this and it makes sense now, you know.

But he says you gain in this experience of writing for the orchestra to do something bigger.

And I couldn't see what that I never could see what it was.

Then all of a sudden, the opportunity to write opera comes.

About where you always meant trouble.

Yeah, of course.

Because you, man, I always take the position.

I don't know.

But look, you know why it comes back to Roger?

I tell my students all the time, I said when I would have a lesson with Roger, he would, you know, and then, you know, I go home and I have that week, I would try to make sure I would shut him up the next, you know, lesson.

I would, man.

I was work.

I'm.

Oh, I saw it.

I know you thought you got me, but I got it here and I wouldn't.

Why go through things with a fine tooth comb and come back next week?

And I present at time and he would sit there.

We never worked out of a book ever.

It all came from his mind on everything.

And he would look at it and he would go, Hmm, that's really nice.

And then he pulled out that red pencil, but right here.

And then he would go in and start to correct and things, right?

So it made me feel like no matter what I did, there was more to learn, you know what I mean?

So yeah, I'm I'm always trying to I'm trying to learn from anybody.

So I'm curious with with the story.

And, you know, we talked to Spike is who brought you in to composing movie and TV.

But I'm curious, when that happened, how did you see the role of music within the story?

Was it a character?

Was it backdrop?

Was it how did you how did you see and do you see music in the process and the ecosystem of storytelling?

But I have to give, you know, all all respect to Spike for that, because in his films, it's a character, it's another thing because he he right off the bat and he said, Listen, man, I don't like underscoring when the music just slams, when a dog hits or you say, I don't like that.

He said, I like very melodic thematic material.

That's that that has a narrative to it.

So right off the bat, you know, it clued me into this and then it became a struggle because I remember, I think it was Summer Sam we were doing and he would always have me write these, these themes for these scenes that had a lot of dialog in it that was important to the story.

Right.

And I'm setting it on Spike you so you want me to put the melody here?

And man, he got tired of me asking that question and he said, Listen, man, it's been scientifically proven that the brain can concentrate on more than one thing at one time.

And so I was like, All right, but I got it.

It's like little Walter's on a muddy track.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So, I mean, you know, he he helped me a lot with that.

And and it became a problem, you know, working with some other people.

Actually, I remember, you know, I was working, doing a TV thing and the director kept saying, Your music is making a commentary on my scene.

And I was like, I thought that was my job.

But his thing, his his approach was it was TV and he didn't want people to change the channel.

So he wanted music that could be like very energetic no matter what was going on.

Has there been a place where you have felt like, as a viewer, as a consumer of the content, that the music hit you in a way that was different?

What, my own music or other?

Me Oh yes.

It's been interesting.

When you get to my age and you forget what you've done, you know, and you see it again and you see it with fresh eyes.

Because when you're in the middle of it, you only see the mistakes you you know what I mean?

It's it's really hard.

I remember talking to Denzel about this when we were doing mobile blues.

Spike would want him to come in a few dailies, and he said, Man, I can't do that.

He said, because I become too self-conscious about what it is that I do.

And now and I can really relate because, you know, every film I don't I don't care what recording session it is, whether it's TV, film or just making albums.

There's something about when you hit the last note on the last take of the last day.

There's a huge amount of clarity that comes over you when you sit there and go, Yeah, I should have, you know what I mean?

And that always bugs you.

But I started to realize and learn.

That's the next project come the experiences of going through everything you've gone through to help you to realize, okay, I see where I didn't pay attention to this and didn't pay to let me pay attention to that the next time.

And it just constantly grows from period to period.

That there's such a I think there's a notion, especially in the current times that we're in from the probably the late the early nineties to now where hip hop has become the most profitable music, the most ostentatious music and the most aggressive, good and bad.

Where does jazz sit?

Within.

I think this this moment of continuing to tell a story of struggle and triumph and justice.

I think jazz is is sitting, which I always said, you know, Art Blakey used to tell us all the time, you know, a slow nickel beats a fast dime all the time.

You know, that was his thing.

You know, I think what happens in jazz is that it's not something that you can just readily come to and say, okay, I get it now.

There's certain aspects of it that you will, obviously.

But man, I'm still listening to John Coltrane.

Miles still in new things in it, you know what I mean?

And I think that's one of the issues with the music that we create.

You know, that's a that's a problem sometimes because we're not creating readily accessible stuff all the time, but we're creating deeply meaningful stuff.

You know, I see it a lot and a lot of young musicians, men who, you know, who are out there doing their thing.

The beautiful part of it is that they have not been deterred by, you know what they see as success in other forms of music.

You know, they still are very dedicated to their art form.

And that's not just in jazz, but that's also in classical music as well.

You know, I mean, one of the things about working on opera is to, to, to, to, to see the number of brilliant and I'm saying and I'm telling you brilliant musicians that nobody knows about.

It still is the most frustrating thing for me at the same time, because these are brilliant voices that the greatest joy that I kind of out of having my operas done at the Met was to give those young African-American voices a vehicle to show their talent.

You know, and one of the things that we talked about that I think is important to say here is that, you know, a lot of those singers had come from the church or either come from singing R&B, a jazz.

And when it's time to sing, you know, Rigoletto, Carmen or any of that stuff, or Verdi Wagner, they're told to turn that off, you know what I mean?

And I get it.

You know that that style of music wasn't created back then.

So if you're going to sing that music, then you've got to adhere to the tenets of that, right?

Well, with my operas, I'm like, bring all of that back.

These are current stories and we're trying to show the breadth of these stories.

So I remember Angel Blue when we did Fire Shut Up in my Bones, and she grew up in a church and she came up to me.

She was really sweet about it.

She said, So is it okay?

I'm like, Please just do.

I'm a jazz musician.

Are you kidding me?

Do your thing and in the rehearsal and I'll never forget it.

The first day she started to bring out her gospel voice and mix it with her operatic voice, and she started improvising these phrases.

And the thing there wasn't a dry eye in the room.

And we had been listening to this thing for months, but it was something about that whole thing.

And I think, you know, one of the things that I think people have missed about the success of my operas, it's not just me, it's a culture.

That's what's that.

But that's the thing that I've seen people come to first, sort of in my bones and championed, but mostly fire.

When they see the steps show on the stage at the Met, they holler because they're seeing the attention on that stage.

Well, and let's talk about that because because even in the power of storytelling, there's also the power of control.

Yes.

And so whether that's an industry or whether that is access to venues.

Yes.

And whether it's Branford or you or others, there is a another kind of cohort, if you will.

Yes.

Of players within your ecosystem that are beginning to be able to green light determine what projects, why is that important and what is the future of that for you.

So that the kind of thing you just talked about happening becomes more of the norm than an anomaly?

Well, it's extremely important because we've always been trying to get in the room.

That's the biggest thing.

You know, for the longest time, we've been locked out of the room where all the decisions are made.

So if you look at when you look at Jason Moran, you look at Victor Goins and Saint Louis, I think Terry Lynn is in Boston and I'm myself on San Francisco.

As a jazz, we are all the artistic directors of these major arts organizations where we could go in and have serious impact about what gets greenlit, how we can commission new works, how we can celebrate certain artists and put things on our stages that kind of tell a narrative about where this music has come from and how it's evolving, you know what I mean?

I always have a saying like, Shame on you, you shouldn't let me in here.

You know what I mean?

Too bad, dude.

You gave me the keys for.

Just hold on, you know?

But I think I.

But I do, you know, and in all seriousness, I think it's a it's a big shift in the art world that hasn't truly been noticed yet.

And I think people are starting to slowly start to get it, you know, and I think over the course of time, it would have a huge effect.

As you do that, though, and and as you flex in a lot of ways to one show, not only your creative talent, but your business acumen, what's the balance?

How do you balance between this is just dope.

Right?

And this makes money.

How much time we got?

It is a it is a struggle, you know, because the reality is, is that these lights don't stay on for free.

You know, that is a struggle.

But here's the thing, you know, and I'm and this is something that I'm going through in my present position.

There have been acts that have been brought there that make money.

Right.

And they kind of keep the doors open.

But I also feel like they're acts that make money that are more in line with the philosophy of who we are as artists and we don't go after them.

And I think that's what I want to turn around.

The other part of it too, is that I want to take the success of those acts and highlight the young talent in the mid range.

They're not beginners, but we don't have record companies and radio stations like we used to.

So some of these mid-level artists are struggling out there.

So we started a series called Upswing just for them.

Where we going to do double bills with mid-level artists who we deem need to have more visibility and recognition and hopefully, you know, introduce them to the Bay Area so that they can get to the point where they could play the main hall by themselves.

Now, these concerts are going to be in the main hall, but they're going to be double billed.

But we do want to the goal is to try to build them up so that they can do it on their own.

And the other thing, too, that we're excited about is that we livestream a lot of our concerts and then we have a digital on demand service.

So not only will we be doing that, but we will be chronicling, yeah, you know, their development as artists.

And then creating more.

AP Yeah, hopefully.

Yeah.

Let's shift gears a little bit and I want to make sure we have time to open up questions.

But beyond the industry, there is this unbelievable power of legacy.

We I was at a conference last week.

We had 350 Afro Colombians and we're talking about the inextricably, inextricably connected DNA of our music, those connected to Africa.

How do you think about legacy, the legacy of New Orleans, the legacy of your parents, the legacy of the culture you talked about and and how much is it dangerous to have integrity to legacy when you are looking to be open to the move?

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Legacy is important because you don't you don't do this in a vacuum, do I mean, I stand on some very strong shoulders.

I don't have no qualms about talking about it.

When people talk about me being the first African-American composer to have an opera go to the Met, they always ask me, What does that feel like?

I said is I have mixed emotions about it because I may be the first, but I will say I wasn't the first qualified, you know what I mean?

There were so many people who had the ability to do this but didn't have the opportunity to do like.

They brought me a ledger, you know, that had William Grant Still's name in it three times where he was rejected.

And I'm like to do was rejected in 1929, 1934 and in 1939 or somewhere in again.

Right.

And I'm sitting there going the persistence of him to even go back to them with some of the comments that they said was so disrespectful.

Doesn't have what it takes to write real opera now, meaning not now.

Meanwhile, while that happened, I had just heard one of his operas done in St Louis and didn't know it was him.

And I'm sitting there going, Man, what is that?

That really sounds hip and it sounds current.

There's a applicable highway, one that was written in the thirties.

Wow.

Then bring that forward.

And I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but bring it forward where some of the rhythms that I've written in my opera are hard to translate into the orchestral world.

And my thinking is, well, if that would have become a part of the lexicon way back then, this wouldn't be a problem, you know what I mean?

So legacy is really important because I feel like when when they showed me that legend meant I was on television live and I got so upset watching it, but I had to keep my cool because I was on I was on screen and I didn't want my mom, the customer.

Yeah, you know, but, but it made me work hard to make sure that fire was going to be a success, because it wasn't just about me.

It was about the history of all of the people that have come before me.

So now that's important.

And it's important for us to know that history.

Right.

But it's not.

But it's also important for not for us not to be bound by it.

You know, one of the things about my relationship with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter over the last few decades of my life, it's been those guys have been the biggest champions of pushing you forward to do your own thing, you know what I mean?

And it's it's it's been a it's been a journey because the music that we're going to play for you tonight is a tribute to Wayne Shorter.

And some of it is some of his compositions and others is stuff that we had written, you know, to show him how much we loved him and how much he had influence on us because he don't he didn't man.

He didn't need you to record his tunes, you know what I'm saying?

He wants to know what's on your mind, what do you have to say?

And the thing about it, in this world that we're living in now, in this political climate that we're in, it's important for artists to speak their mind.

Now, the thing is, we have to learn all the lessons that we can learn from our predecessors.

You know how they develop melody, how they dealt with harmony, how they dealt with rhythm.

You break it all down to the technical things that you can analyze and sit there and go, Oh, I see what that is.

But I know for me I like this type of rhythm, but I can do that this way, but take some of those elements, right?

And that's what I've been doing.

So it's not about being bound by the legacy, but it's being inspired by it.

Because I look at Herbie Hancock, he didn't play like Thelonious Monk was.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Who didn't play like Duke Ellington, right?

They were all great liars, crazy people.

That Herbie was crazy.

He is crazy, man.

Herbie.

Herbie is on a whole nother plane.

But working with him, as you know, when I first started playing with him, I had to take ibuprofen and I was getting headaches every night, trying to keep up with him and listening to him every night.

But the beautiful thing about that legacy is to see how he appreciated all of those people that have come before him.

But he never felt like he had to be there.

Yeah.

And he also always loved and still loves young artists.

Oh, look, listen, my first tour with him, we were playing one of his tunes.

Oh, man, I can't remember which one it was, but.

But he did a different arrangement of it than from the Blue Note recordings, right?

So we went on tour in Europe, then one day doing soundcheck, he started to play the old Blue Note version.

So then the drummer, Kendrick Scott, jumped on, he started swinging.

And James James Dean is the bass and he started walking bass lines.

Man, I had nothing to do.

I was like, so upset listening to it, like, man, this is killing you, you know?

This is the old that is the old vintage Herbie, right?

And then Herbie, you know, he was he wasn't paying attention to us.

He was just doing it.

And man, he finished.

He got amnesia.

And it just sounds so old to me.

We had to play it off like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's some old stuff.

Yeah.

So let me ask you this because because because part of your legacy is some of the new artists that you've touched.

I'm curious what what is anything you've seen recently that you loved it because you didn't understand it?

Oh Ambrose I can musically one of my students, a trumpet player, you know this guy, he comes out playing the trumpet in such a different way.

He has a different into valid kind of concept.

And it's not nothing that he's putting on.

That's just really who he is.

And I love that about him.

And I'm sitting here and I will listen to him play and I'll go, Bruh, how did you come up with that?

You know, but it's it's mystifying and fascinating at the same time.

But the beauty of it is, is that that's what it's supposed to be.

It's supposed.

He's not supposed to play like us.

He's not?

No, that wouldn't be a drag if he did.

You know, why do we why do we need to know the copy of any of us?

You know, we want to we want to see what you got to say, because then you inspire us to move forward and try to grow.

Part of our legacy, too, is accepting the breadth and depth of our complexity as people.

I don't know if, you know, a mill will be in there.

A couple of people that I asked if you could ask Terrance any question, what would it what would you ask a M.M.

is the founder and president of an organization called Native Son that is advocating the creation of community for black queer men.

Okay.

And was one of the partners ultimately around Champion.

And he asked the question, When you had the chance of doing an opera, what was it that that pushed you to focus on the spectrum and complexity of black masculinity.

With Emile it was something that I read his book and it blew me away.

Charles Charles's book.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

The book on Emile Griffith, it was is called nine, ten and Out.

So it's an autobiography.

And one of the things that I thought about was this dude became welterweight champion and couldn't celebrate that openly with anybody that he loved.

You know?

And the first time I won a Grammy without thinking, it's just a reaction.

I turn to give my wife a kiss.

Then I go up on the stage.

We're celebrating this together, and for him not to have the ability to do that, I thought was a travesty.

And then there was something that he said, you know, one of his interviews that really blew me away.

And it and we put it in the opera, he said, man, for people who don't know, Emile Griffith was a fighter who fought a guy named Benny Paret, and he killed Benny Paret in the ring.

You hit him 17 times in less than 7 seconds.

You know, Benny fell into a coma, and ten days later he died.

And one of the things people don't realize they were friends.

So that was also a really hard thing for Emile to take, you know?

But in this interview, he said, Man, I killed a man and the world forgave me.

He said, But I love a man in the world wants to kill me.

And that was a powerful line to me and to me.

I'm sitting there saying, man, you know, at the time it was 2012 and I'm like, Come on, why are we still concerned about this?

You know, it's like this has been going on since the beginning of time.

So we need to learn how to accept all of our differences.

You know, it's not about trying to make us be one thing or the other.

We are who we are.

You know, we're all God's children.

We all God's creations.

If you think about it in that way, then you should look at another person as being something that's beautiful and precious, right?

So to have this guy go through his life without being able to do that, and if you watch this documentary on him and if you watch it and in the documentary, he's he's a retired fighter, years later, he meets up with Benny Peres son.

And he asks is, how's your mother?

And he says, My mom's fine, but she couldn't make it.

She just couldn't bring herself to do it.

Emile goes, I understand.

Benny says to him, he says, Man, I just want you to know we don't harbor any ill will towards you.

Emile starts to.

Cry.

Like a kid, and I'm sitting there thinking to myself the amount of pressure and that this guy has held within him over these years of killing his friend inadvertently, along with being gay and queer and all of the trauma that he had to deal with that because, you know, we put it in opera, too.

There's a famous story about him being beat up, coming out of a gay bar in in New York.

And the joke was always, you know, because he got beat up really badly, you know, they said, man, you know, it's a shame that he Emile was beat up so severely and they said, yeah, but you should have seen the other three guys because he was a fighter, you know what I mean?

He was a boxer.

So.

And then with with Charles, it was the same thing.

It wasn't necessarily about being gay.

It was about being ostracized for being different.

That's the thing about it for me, it's like, why, why?

Why do we do this?

You know, it's and to me, it's it's a fear based kind of thing.

You know, if you secure within yourself, you know who you are.

So why are you worried about what other people are doing?

It shouldn't matter, you know?

I mean, you know, I know.

Listen, I grew up in the church.

I grew up, you know, with with all of those questions.

But for me, I can't imagine a God creating something that he would reject, that just something in my mind at that never made sense to me.

And I think that's a great Segway.

This is going to be the last question before we open to the audience again, this theme within The Magic Flute is that there is an instrument, there's a music that is able to ensure that light defeats fear.

And as a music.

Yeah, but for you, when is it done that for you?

Oh, do like when?

When, when do you remember when music was not just something that was listened to, but something that entered you in a way.

So many times it.

Shifted darkness into light.

So many times.

The most the most powerful one was, for me was I was in Perugia, Italy, and it was a guy named David Chu Talk.

This was before YouTube and all of those things.

And he would he would play they would put him in a theater and he would play all of these jazz videos that you had never seen before.

Right.

And I went to this theater and it was a small opera house and it had booths all over the place.

And I was sitting in a booth by myself.

And he played John Coltrane playing Alabama, which is written for those four little girls that would kill.

And I cried like a baby listening to that.

And the power of that changed my life, you know, because I was looking at that saying, you know, I knew exactly what John Coltrane was coming from.

Never had met him in my life, you know, never talked to him, ever.

But I know the pain that he was feeling, looking at someone that looked like him, that was being treated that way.

And then that made music different to me because, you know, it wasn't about how fast you could play, was the most complex rhythm you could play a how how you could play or how many keys you could play in.

You know, the artist doesn't know any of that.

They don't know any of that.

It's really about what it is that you have to say, how are you going to touch people and how are you going to heal people's souls?

So I had something happen to me actually here in Cleveland, you know, because, you know, with my E collective band, we did an album based around I Can't Breathe and Black Lives Matter.

And then the follow up album, we went to three different cities where you had traumatic events.

We did here we did Dallas, who did Minneapolis.

Right.

And when we were here, we were playing at this club, man, and this guy came up to me after the show and he said, Man, I thought you were going to play the music for Metallica as well, which is the music from Spike Lee's documentary Requiem for Katrina.

And he said, But, you know, you started to play and the music just sounded angry, you know?

And he said, But then you told us what the music was about.

And then he said, Well, my next stop was Wolf, the guy that created that music that I love so much.

Is this angry about this topic?

Maybe I should rethink my position on gun control.

And that was a powerful moment for me, right?

Because then it spoke to me, drawn to him what John Coltrane did to me.

And as an artist, you can never take that lightly.

You know, there was a young kid came up to me years ago, man, we were in Canada and his kid came up to me and when he shook my hand, he started to.

Cry.

And he started to shake like this.

And I'm like, Hey, man, it's okay.

It's okay.

You're right.

He says, you don't know.

He was I think he was 14 or 15 years old.

He said, you don't understand.

He said, you are my Michael Jordan.

Those kind of things that happen to you like that make you realize is this is not a game.

You know what I mean?

People come to music because, like you say, music washes away the dust of everyday life and there's nothing more true than that statement.

Right.

And as an artist, you have to be mindful of that and try to make sure that you're not you're not trying to manipulate that, but you're trying to speak right to it.

That's another thing that I took from art a lot of time.

I've been good today, man.

A lot of times I'm always saying Art Blakey used to say, you know, I've been good.

I said that that much today.

But one of the things he used to say to that, that really stuck with me.

He says, Never play beneath your audience.

Never play above them.

Just play straight talk.

And as we as we open this conversation, thank you for always playing straight to us.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, y'all.

We're about to begin.

The Q&A for our live stream audience.

For those is joining.

I'm Jeff Johnson, managing director of Active and moderator.

For today's conversation, we're joined by eight time Grammy Award winning jazz musician Terence Blanchard.

He's here in Cleveland as part of the Cleveland Orchestra's man, Dale Humanities Festival, taking place now through May 26.

We welcome questions from everyone city club members, guests, students and those joining via our live stream at City Club dot org.

If you'd like to text a question for our speaker, please text it.

23305415794.

That's 3305415794.

And clearly City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

Can we have our first question?

We're going to do that right now.

I've got a text question here that came in as you were speaking.

In this country, Bipoc artists are often siloed into certain arts and music industries expected to stay there, and outrage ensues when barriers are broken down or industries reclaimed.

I think Lil Nas X and Beyoncé with country music.

Can you describe the challenges or opportunities working in jazz versus opera or back in the day versus now?

Well, you know, those challenges are things that you can't allow to stop your creativity.

You know, when somebody called me to write an opera, man, I leaned across the table to smell his breath to see if he was drunk, you know, because I'm like, you got to have the wrong dude, man.

But once we once once I went down that road, there's a lot of things that I started to notice and realize.

There's certain places my opera hasn't gone.

You know, there's certain people who won't bring it, you know, and that's fine, because where it has gone, it has made noise and has had it has had impact.

I'm Marcus.

I'm here with the Cleveland Orchestra, but I used to work for a Cincinnati opera.

And there we had a new works incubator series called Up Refused New Works, and which I was co-founder and director of.

And we had the honor of hosting your first workshop for Champion.

I remember.

And that was in 2012.

So yes, it was while.

It was great, man.

You guys what these guys were amazing because the students that they brought.

Yeah.

Were like amazing students.

But I'm sorry you had a question.

Yeah.

So my question for you was, what's been your experience since then?

Working in opera and working in the opera industry?

And I think those are two slightly different things.

It's it's it's I mean, there's been a lot of positives, you know what I mean?

There's been few negatives like I was just talking about.

But but the positives outweigh of that.

You know, there was a person that we just lost, our Richard Gattis, who was a big, you know, supporter of opera and was artistic director in St Louis and a couple other places.

And he would pulled me aside and he said, you know what opera needs right?

And that meant a lot to me because I never talk about myself doing anything like that.

I don't even try to I would even tell you that normally, you know what I mean?

But I think it's important to this conversation, because what it did was it made me feel like what I was doing was relevant.

You know, some of us suffer from imposter syndrome, a You know what I mean?

Because, you know, you probably are doing something that's not really being seen in other communities and you wonder if what it is that you're doing is relevant and if it's really hitting people.

But when he said that to me, it gave me the confidence to move forward and say, Well, maybe I'm on to something, you know, and it's it's it's fired me up.

I hope I say this the right way.

It's fired me up to give these young, talented vocalists more vehicles.

You know what I mean?

Because the Tonya Mor, who played Charles's mother in the opera, she said, I've been singing at the Met for 30 years and this is the first role that I really relate to.

Stephanie Blythe, who is who is an amazing mezzo soprano, Ah told me, she said I've never had this much fun doing an opera and she said, I wish Jessie was here to see what she birthed, you know what I mean?

So when you hear comments like that, you start to say, okay, this is what I was supposed to be.

And and the thing that I told Peter Gelb, who's the managing director at the Met and other people in interviews, is like, Dude, I do not want to be a token.

I have to be a turnkey for other people, for other genders, for other people of other ethnic backgrounds to be able to tell stories because that's what opera needs.

It needs no, no.

No, no, no.

It needs for us to be current.

There was a guy who came to my opera in New Orleans, an older gentleman, African-American gentleman, and he said to me, he said, man, if this is opera, I'd come.

So I wanted to build on that.

And do do you see yourself?

And if not, who do you see as almost being this this Alvin Ailey of opera?

Because anybody anyone who knows Alvin Ailey understands that you can't dance for Ailey if you don't know ballet.

Right.

And so there there is a technicality to it that is an ode to the structure.

Yes.

But a freedom culturally.

Oh, to.

And is that what you see yourself as within this opera space?

And if not you who.

I rely on, you know, I mean, I don't look at myself like that.

I don't I don't like comparing myself to somebody as great as him.

You know what I mean?

Wow.

Well, I mean, you know, I mean, because I look at myself as still trying to grow and get better all the time, you know what I mean?

And I have a lot of growing to do.

What I do see myself as is a person.

Like I said earlier, that's giving room because one of the things that's been beautiful about this process is that many singers I don't know, those operas don't belong to me anymore.

It belongs to these singers.

They're using the arias in their auditions.

This they're doing it all over the place, you know what I mean?

And it's beautiful to watch because they had taken such pride in it.

Yes, ma'am.

As I was listening to you talk about all the elements that you do incorporate in your music, I was curious if there are other art forms that you haven't yet that that speak to you, but you haven't yet written or performed music around ballet.

You know, Camille Brown, who was the person who did the choreography for both of my operas at the Met, I think is just brilliant.

I think she's amazing, you know, and I would really would like to do an expanded, extended piece with her.

You know, when you watch Fire Shut It In My Bones, it opens up the second act with the ballet.

And the ballet that she put together basically told the entire story of Charles's life.

And it was just gorgeous to watch, you know?

And I've always been a big fan of when I said big fan.

My wife is a huge fan.

I've been a fan of dance, you know, and recently, because of Camille, working with her, have really started to see the power in it and would really like to work more in depth and in that field.

Thank you so much.

Yes, sir.

Terence, about a year ago, our now 14 year old grandson sat his parents down and said there was something he needed to tell them and confessed to loving rap music.

How do you.

So the question, I guess, really is how do you bring kids like that into the fold, if you will, or at least not alienate them, so that once they burn through that, maybe they go on to discover the other great music that they're still listening to.

And it's really about exposing them to the music.

You know, my middle daughter right now is is having a pop career.

She wants to be a pop singer.

She does what they call hyperpop.

Don't ask me.

I don't know.

I'm just learning the term, you know what I mean?

But at the same time, that's the same kid who comes to my operatic performances and love them.

That's the same kid.

If my band is playing someplace and she's around, she has to be there to hear it, you know what I mean?

So for me, it's about exposing them to it.

And she's been exposed to this stuff, obviously, all her life.

And as a result, she's exposing her friends to it, you know, and then they're becoming open to it.

So it's not about me getting her to do what I do, because I don't want her to do that.

I want her to be happy doing what she does, but I do want her to be aware of it.

And I think as a result, I think it has an impact on the music that she creates.

Because I've always told I said, I don't know how you're going to deal in the pop world because she's got she's got big is the medium.

I mean, she can really hear and she knows harmony and she's really great at it.

And I'm like, okay, you're going to have a problem with some of this other stuff because, you know, Harmony doesn't move that way.

But guess what?

She's trying to fight.

She's finding a way to do that type of music and that type of harmonic kind of concept into that.

There's also something brilliant there, which is most of the hip hop is sampling other music.

And so in having conversation with your grandson, have him identify who the people that he's likes are sampling.

It gives an immediate connection to a breadth and depth of so much other music and.

So that that's beautiful.

So so as we close because we're we're right at that time.

Okay.

There's something really amazing about the power of inspiration.

And I'm curious, what are you most inspired by in this moment that is going to yield things yet unknown for your creative?

It's the same thing.

I've always been inspired by this.

You know, the people in my community who have done great things, who have gone unnoticed, you know, when we did A Miracle at Saint Ana, dealing with the Buffalo Soldiers at a chance to meet some of those guys and to listen to them talk about, you know, aerial fights and all of that stuff is just simply amazing.

And for people not to know who they are as, a travesty, you know, it's the same thing we've been we've been we've been talking about it just in terms of the stuff that happens in these communities that, you know, most Americans don't about.

I'm always inspired by that type of thing.

You know, my dad, you know, was a brilliant person who didn't graduate college, but he was brilliant and all of his friends were you know, it was the type of thing where, you know, if you wanted to know something, you were having to go talk to someone.

So you may not have been a doctor, the man he always loved, medicine, you know what I mean?

And he knew what he was talking about.

Or you were into this, go talk to someone.

So those are the brilliant men.

And the thing that used to break my heart was they always used to call themselves Mr.

Right.

They use their first names, but they call each other Mister because they were trying to give each other respect, but they weren't getting it in other places.

That kind of stuff sticks with me, you know what I mean?

So when I'm stepping out on a stage and when I'm creating anything, I'm bringing all of those people with me, you know, because I am I am a manifestation of all of their efforts.

And that's not lost on me as an artist or as a person.

And I feel a responsibility, never let them down.

Well, I want to say thank you, because I think greatness is less about what you have accomplished and what you create as much as the spirit with which you engage every person you meet and the spirit with which you engage the world is one that is so incredibly inspiring and as much as the art that you create.

And so I know I speak for the entire audience and those listening when I say thank you for not just your presence and your contribution, but the spirit with which you come into this place.

Thank you for saying it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you very much, Terence Blanchard.

And thank you, Jeff Johnson.

Brilliant conversation, as you all know.

But it's worth mentioning, Terence Blanchard is appearing tonight at Severance as part of the Mandela Opera and Humanities Festival.

I think there are still one or two tickets available.

If they're if they aren't, just work really hard and you'll figure out how to get one.

I'm sure forms like this one are made possible thanks to support from individuals like all of you.

Thank you so much for being a part of this community and for making civic dialog possible here at the City Club of Cleveland.

You can find out more at City Club Board.

Our gratitude as well extended to Tri-C Jazz Fest, which starts on June 20th.

Please join me in welcoming students from M.c squared STEM High School, Shaker Heights High School and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra.

Thank you all so much for being a part of this today.

We really appreciate having you here.

We'd also like to welcome guests at tables hosted by the Cleveland Orchestra, Tri-C and of Dave Nash.

Thank you very much for joining us today.

We're off on Friday and we'll be back at the City Club on Thursday, May 30th to hear from local hero and boxer Morrell, McCain, Glenville native, who's going off to Paris this summer to participate in a little sporting competition happening there.

You can find out more about all the city club programing, as I said at City Club Board.

That brings us to the end of our program today.

Thank you all so much for being a part of it.

And if you want to hear more jazz, you should check out jazz anyhow from our friends at Ideastream.

Thank you so much.

Our forum is adjourned.

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