Pathfinder

For trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, music is all about the decisions you make.

By Jason Roeder
Berklee.edu Correspondent
June 6, 2006

Terence Blanchard plays for students.
Photo by Phil Farnsworth
   
"Why did you pick that note?" Years before Terence Blanchard joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, began scoring Spike Lee films, or picked up his Grammy Award, he was a 16-year-old in New Orleans under the tutelage of composer Roger Dickerson. When Blanchard wrote music, Dickerson demanded he justify every element of it, every measure—every single note. At the time, it seemed like needless parsing. It turned out to be indispensable training, for music and for life.

"I didn't realize until later that he made me deal with choices," said Blanchard, on hand recently at Berklee's David Friend Recital Hall to deliver the ninth annual Dr. Warrick L. Carter Lecture for Black History Month. "We're not all going to play the same, take the same path. But as long as you do what's in your heart, that's the path you should take. That's the path that's going to be most beneficial to you as a musician, but also to anyone who's listening to you play."

Of course, it took more than the guidance of a single teacher for Blanchard to work out his artistic identity. He told the mostly student audience that he spent much of his early career unsure of the music he was making, despite—or maybe because of—the fact that, at Wynton Marsalis's invitation, he had accepted Marsalis's spot in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He was part of a lineup that included tenor saxophonist (and current Berklee Woodwind Department chair) Bill Pierce, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, and Blakey himself on drums. It was daunting enough getting on stage with these talents, but Blanchard also knew that the Messengers had included names like Clifford Brown, Woody Shaw, and Freddie Hubbard, and that in other settings Blakey had played with the legends, Miles, Dizzy. Blanchard was still a teenager, a supremely talented one, but still a kid in many ways. That was why Blakey gave him some startling advice.

"We were backstage and he said, '[Forget] Diz, [forget] Miles, Freddy, Woody, Clifford,'" Blanchard remembered. "'You're here to be yourself and the best musician you can be.' He told me that when I was 19 years old, and I was scared to death. He named all the guys whose solos I was still transcribing, but by him saying that, I thought back to Roger. Here was another guy who was going to challenge me."

Blanchard's lecture placed him on an impressive list of past Carter lecturers, including Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot and Stefon Harris.
Photo by Phil Farnsworth
 

But maybe there's no better way to find yourself than to finally meet someone you've been following your whole life, only to realize you'll never catch up. That's how Blanchard felt when he finally came face to face with his idol, Miles Davis, backstage at a jazz festival.

"As soon as I hit the dressing room, Miles looks up at me and says [impersonating Davis's hoarse whisper] 'Terence,'" Blanchard said. "The thing I realized right away was that I could never be him because I looked at his personality. I looked at him as a man and knew we were two different people. Then I was scared because this is my hero, this is the guy I'm trying to emulate. I wondered, 'What's next?'"

Of course, if Blanchard never found himself artistically, he wouldn't be on stage telling his story, and it was when he left the Jazz Messengers to form a group with Donald Harrison, that he really began to emerge as an innovator in his own right.

"We were always trying something new," Blanchard said. "We didn't want to rely on what we had learned. We were always trying to create different grooves, come up with different sonic structures . . . I learned that you've got to open yourself up to things, things you might not understand, things you might not even like." 

  From left, president Roger Brown, Terence Blanchard, and dean of professional music Lawrence McLellan.
Photo by Phil Farnsworth
And now, at 43, Blanchard leads his own sextet. He sees the group as the end result of everything he's learned, everything he's played, every note he's picked out. He knows his voice, but has an open mind to balance it out. His challenge now is keeping his ego in check as his younger bandmates explore their own potential, figure out just what they want to say with their music. Sometimes they surprise him, sometimes they confuse him. But they never upset him. He's been there, after all.

"I'm here to tell you that once you start to delve into the unknown, bit by bit it starts to come to you," Blanchard said. "It's not going to come when you want it, but that's what the quest of being an artist is all about. No one said being an artist is about having a style as soon as you get out there. That's not how it works. But if you chip away at it, you'll look back and say wow. Cool."

Warrick L. Carter served as Berklee's dean of faculty and subsequently as the college's provost/vice president for academic affairs. Berklee's board of trustees established the annual Dr. Warrick L. Carter Lecture Series in recognition of Carter's contributions to the school, particularly his efforts on behalf of diversity and faculty development.

Jason Roeder is editor/writer in Berklee's communications department.




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