Terence Blanchard

Terence Blanchard
Terence Blanchard performing in July 2008.
Background information
Born	(1962-03-13) March 13, 1962 (age 54)
Origin	New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Genres	Modern jazz, hard bop
Occupation(s)	Musician, bandleader, composer, arranger, film score writer
Instruments	Trumpet
Years active	1980–present
Labels	Blue Note Sony Classical Columbia
Associated acts	Art Blakey Donald Harrison Branford Marsalis Bill Lee Terence Blanchard Quintet featuring Brice Winston Fabian Almazan Joshua Crumbly Kendrick Scott
Website	TerenceBlanchard.com

Terence Oliver Blanchard (born March 13, 1962) is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, and film score composer.

Since Blanchard emerged on the scene in 1980 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and then shortly thereafter with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, he has been a leading artist in jazz. He was an integral figure in the 1980s jazz resurgence, having recorded several award-winning albums and having performed with the jazz elite.

He is known as a straight-ahead artist in the hard bop tradition but has recently developed an African-fusion style of playing that makes him unique from other trumpeters on the performance circuit. It is as a film composer that Blanchard reaches his widest audience. His trumpet can be heard on nearly fifty film scores; more than forty bear his compositional style.

Since 2000, Blanchard has served as artistic director at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. As of August 2011, he was named the artistic director of the Henry Mancini Institute at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. In the fall of 2015 he was named a visiting scholar in jazz composition at Berklee College of Music. He lives in the Garden District of New Orleans with his wife and four children.

Blanchard was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the only child to parents Wilhelmina and Joseph Oliver Blanchard, a part-time opera singer and insurance company manager. Blanchard began playing piano at the age of five and then the trumpet at age eight upon hearing Alvin Alcorn play. Blanchard played trumpet recreationally alongside childhood friend Wynton Marsalis in summer music camps but showed no real proficiency on the instrument.

Then, while in high school, he began studying at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) under Roger Dickerson and Ellis Marsalis, Jr.. From 1980 to 1982, Blanchard studied under jazz saxophonist Paul Jeffrey and trumpeter Bill Fielder at Rutgers University, while touring with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. In 1982, Wynton Marsalis recommended Blanchard to replace him in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and, until 1986, Blanchard was the band's trumpeter and musical director. With Blakey and as co-leader of a quintet with saxophonist Donald Harrison and pianist Mulgrew Miller, Blanchard rose to prominence as a key figure in the 1980s Jazz Resurgence. The Harrison/Blanchard group recorded five albums from 1984 to 1988 until Blanchard left to pursue a solo career in 1990.