When six-time Grammy winning jazz artist and Oscar nominated composer Terence Blanchard recruited the group of musicians for his E-Collective, using their music as a creative response to social injustice wasn’t top of mind.
His art had informed the traumatic experiences of his people before – both in history and real time – with the scoring of Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” “4 Little Girls” and “When The Levees Broke.”
But E-Collective was created to show the current generation of musicians in the digital age the importance of theory and playing at the top of their craft. As they played in Europe, unarmed teen Michael Brown was gunned down right here in Ferguson. Eric Garner was choked to death by New York Police a few days before. With the Black Lives Matter movement in full swing, Blanchard had to use his music to frame the moment.
Their first record, a live album – named “Breathless” to commemorate the haunting final three words of Eric Garner, “I can’t breathe” – said it all.
Blanchard, who has become an adopted son of sorts for St. Louis because of his groundbreaking work at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and his E-Collective will be the guest of Jazz St. Louis for a special engagement from November 20 – 24th at Ferring Jazz Bistro sponsored by Noémi and Michael Neidorff.
Using his music as a rallying cry for social justice was a lesson Blanchard learned while in Europe many years ago, long before the E-Collective was conceived.
He was a young trumpeter with jazz legend Art Blakey playing in Italy for a jazz festival. During his stay, David Chertok, a famed collector of jazz on film, would screen footage in an old opera house during lunchtime. Blanchard made it his business to attend. “This was before the internet,” Blanchard laughed.
He was sitting in a booth by himself when a clip of John Coltrane playing “Alabama” came across the screen. “I cried like a baby,” Blanchard said. “You could just hear his pain about what had happened to those four beautiful little girls. I said, ‘wow, he’s not forgetting what’s going on in his community. He’s still a human being even though he’s a great musician.’ That kind of sparked a change in me.” He began to see music a language that amplified the feelings of pain as a result of systemic injustice felt by those that many have chosen to ignore.
When Hurricane Katrina ravaged Blanchard’s native New Orleans, using his music to convey the pain of a people became a deeply personal experience. “It hit a tipping point with Katrina, where I had to make a statement,” Blanchard said. “I had done the Malcolm X jazz suite, but Katrina was one of the things that helped tip it over the edge for me.” His longtime collaborative partner Spike Lee was working on a film to document the hurricane’s tragic devastation on the city as Blanchard was creating the score for Lee’s film “Inside Man.” Blanchard was working from an apartment in Los Angeles when Katrina hit. He was unable to reach his mother for two weeks, before he learned she was safely evacuated.
Lee asked Blanchard if he would be willing to be a part of the documentary as well as the composer of the score. Normally he meets with Spike Lee in New York. But Lee came to Los Angeles to request that Blanchard and his mother be a part of the film. “He came to L.A. and he asked my mom ‘have you been to your home yet?’”
He then asked if Blanchard and his mother would allow his crew to film them as they see their home for the first time in the wake of Katrina.
“Yes,” Blanchard’s mother said without flinching. “People need to see what we are going through.” The world saw her unfiltered reaction as they arrived and saw the top-to-bottom water damage even before they opened the front door. “To see the pain on her face was one of the worst things,” Blanchard said. “Spike couldn’t even come in the house.”
The authentic moment of pain conveyed by the film – and Blanchard’s experience as a subject and through his music forth the film – falls in line with the intention of the E-Collective.
After touring with the message in the music of “Breathless,” Blanchard simply could not put consciousness on the back burner in his music.
“I think it’s more of me being a part of a collective movement,” Blanchard said. “Because of all these events – events that are still happening every day – we are talking about criminal justice, criminal justice reform and social justice. My hope is that E-Collective does its part to keep those conversations going.”
Jazz St. Louis will welcome Terence Blanchard featuring E-Collective Through November 24 at the Ferring Jazz Bistro. For a full schedule, visit www.jazzstlouis.org or call (314) 571-6000.
