CAPE MAY CONVENTION HALL / SATURDAY, MAY 17 / 9:00pm
The Story:
NEA Jazz Master, Two-time EMMY and Oscar Nominee, Seven-time GRAMMY® winning trumpeter & composer Terence Blanchard has established himself as the quintessential 21st Century Renaissance man. In celebration of his artistic achievements, Blanchard will reimagine the music from his critically acclaimed album, FLOW, for a 20th anniversary tour in 2025, including this hit at the Exit Zero Jazz Festival. The performance marks a full circle moment for Michael Kline, Producer of Exit Zero Jazz Festival. Kline worked as Blanchard’s agent from 1996-2006, putting together the world tour of FLOW.
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 replaced fellow New Orleans trumpeter Wynton Marsalis in the The Jazz Messengers, remaining with Art Blakey’s organization until 1986. Blanchard left The Jazz Messengers to form a quintet with fellow New Orleanian and Jazz Messenger, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison. They released five influential records as a group before Blanchard released his self-titled debut in 1991. To date, he has 17 albums as a leader, including 2007’s Grammy Award winning A Tale of God’s Will.
Blanchard is also noted for having written the score for every Spike Lee film since 1991, including Malcolm X, Clockers, Summer of Sam, Bamboozled, She Hate Me, BlacKkKlansman and Da 5 Bloods. In addition, he composed the score for Lee’s four-hour Hurricane Katrina documentary for HBO entitled, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. With over 40 scores to his credit, he is one of the most sought-after jazz musicians to currently compose for film.
Blanchard made history in 2021 when his Fire Shut Up in My Bones became the first opera by an African American composer to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera in that august institution’s 136-year history. A year later, the Met premiered another Blanchard opera entitled Champion, marking the first time since Richard Strauss that a living composer had two operas premiere in successive seasons. In 2024, the seven-time Grammy winner and two-time Academy Award nominee was named Executive Artistic Director of the SFJazz.
The Sound
Twenty years ago, Blanchard arrived at one of many creative pinnacles in his career, and entered the studio with the objective of creating music that answers one simple, but immense question: What brings joy and purpose to people's lives? Both this query and the subsequent title of the album were inspired by the renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience which explores creativity, peak performance, and genuine happiness.
Twenty years and many milestones later, Blanchard’s artistic identity and perception of this important art form have continued to change with his own work. To celebrate this fan favorite album, but also his own evolution as an artist over the last two decades, Blanchard has reworked these iconic tunes for his current ensemble de force, which received a GRAMMY-nomination for its most recent recording, Absence. This nine-member ensemble, which has performed hundreds of shows over the last four years, now includes The E-Collective, which is comprised of Charles Altura on guitar, Taylor Eigsti on piano and synthesizers, Oscar Seaton on drums, and David “DJ” Ginyard on bass, as well as double-GRAMMY®-winning Turtle Island Quartet. This expansion of instrumentation will offer an updated look at work that has thrilled Blanchard’s fans and rippled through all of his subsequent recordings for the last two decades.
