Music for Jazz’s Sake

Recent theatrical encounters with acclaimed trumpeter/composer Terence Blanchard in town affords us a tidy snapshot of his layered artistic profile. Two years ago, he appeared at the Arlington Theatre in the fiery band led by Herbie Hancock (see story here) — a gig Blanchard has periodically had in the recent chapter of Hancock’s career. 

And in 2001, he appeared at Hahn Hall, but in absentia. His groundbreaking opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones premiered as part of Metropolitan Opera Live in HD streaming program, with Blanchard’s rich background as a composer for film (for Spike Lee and many others), TV and now dipping into the opera world.

When Blanchard returns, live, to Santa Barbara on Tuesday, January 27, at The Granada Theatre as part of the UCSB Arts & Lectures season, he will be returning to his original form, as himself, a potent player and bandleader who also makes music for music’s sake. His previous Santa Barbara landings have found him as bandleader, at the Lobero, and as side ally with Dianne Reeves and the Monterey Festival All-Stars. 

In the case of the upcoming Granada show, he is also making music for the timely cause of paying tribute to this year’s lofty centennial jazz legends Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Those promethean jazz pioneers briefly connected — including on Davis’s historic Kind of Blue — followed different stylistic paths, but shared a bold impulse to continually evolve. And both have left indelible imprints on jazz in their wakes to this day, in terms of their respective instruments and musical characters.

As an added bonus, the trumpet/tenor sax majesty of its tribute subjects will have its “roles” played by Blanchard and the commanding tenor player in his own right, Ravi Coltrane, the son of John and Alice Coltrane. 

In an interview, Blanchard spoke about his longstanding willingness to stretch beyond expectations and creative comfort zones, which took him into the opera world — a rare move for a jazz musician — with Fire Shut Up in My Bones and the subsequent opera Champion (written in 2013 and premiered by Opera Theatre of St. Louis). The double-header marked the first time a composer has had two new operas premiere in successive years at the Met since Richard Strauss.

“I’m all about the challenges,” Blanchard told me, on the phone from a restaurant in New Orleans, where was born and lives with his family, “and trying to do something creative. For me, it’s a means of growing and constantly trying to find new things, new ways of expression. And hopefully, for the listener, it will be a little different experience. You have all of my heroes to blame for that,” he laughs. “Look at Miles Davis and even Ornette Coleman. Max Roach, too. None of those guys just rested on their reputations. They were constantly changing, constantly evolving.

“Another thing I admire about those guys is that they were socially conscious. I think that’s what art is. It’s a reflection of our culture, from which it was created, or which we exist in. You can never separate those things. Music for the sake of just music, to me, is ok, but it’s not something that truly interests me. Art in general, is supposed to be an expression of our daily experience.”

Terence Blanchard and Ravi Coltrane perform the Miles Davis and John Coltrane Centennial on Tuesday, January 25, 7:30 p.m., at The Granada Theatre (1214 State St.). See bit.ly/3YKuF8n.