...called by The Guardian "one of the 10 best around the world". We'd all be grateful for a pipeline, a channel, a link, from your world into all of this... Truth of the matter is, this is your world too.
Bio:
Terence Oliver Blanchard began playing piano at age 5, and later trumpet beginning in summer camps alongside his childhood friend Wynton Marsalis.
While studying jazz at Rutgers University, Blanchard was invited to play with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra in 1982 before Marsalis recommended him as his replacement in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
Following a string of collaborative recordings, he released his first self-titled solo album on Columbia Records in 1991, leading to a string of acclaimed often conceptual works and over forty movie scores, primarily feature films and documentaries for director Spike Lee, including HBO’s 4-hour When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.
Regarding his consistent attachment to artistic works of conscience, Blanchard confesses, “You get to a certain age when you ask, ‘Who’s going to stand up and speak out for us?’ Then you look around and realize that the James Baldwins, Muhammad Alis and Dr. Kings are no longer here…and begin to understand that it falls on you. I’m not trying to say I’m here to try to correct the whole thing, I’m just trying to speak the truth.”
In that regard, he cites unimpeachable inspirations. “Max Roach with his ‘Freedom Now Suite,’ John Coltrane playing ‘Alabama,’ even Louis Armstrong talking about what was going on with his people any time he was interviewed. Herbie Hancock & Wayne Shorter who live by their Buddhist philosophy and try to expand the conscience of their communities. I’m standing on all of their shoulders. How dare I come through this life having had the blessing of meeting those men and not take away any of that? Like anybody else, I’d like to play feel good party music but this album [Live] is about the reality of where we are.”
Contact Information
Management/Booking:
Management
Robin Burgess
Burgess Management
Over The Garage Productions
6 Park Island Drive
New Orleans 70122
T: (504) 309-0648 [email protected]
burgessmgmt.com
Tour Manager
Tondrae Kemp
World Swirl Productions
(M) 225.337.2054 [email protected]
Booking Agent
Michael Fox
IMN International Music Network
278 Main St.
Gloucester, MA 01930
T: (978) 283-2883 [email protected]
imnworld.com
Film & Television Agency
Sam Schwartz
The Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency
4111 W. Alameda Avenue, Suite 509
Burbank, CA. 91505
T: 818.260.8500 [email protected]
www.gsamusic.com
Publicity Representative - Worldwide
Alisse Kingsley
Muse Media
2658 Griffith Park Blvd. Suite 726
Los Angeles, CA 90039
T:(323) 467-8508 [email protected]
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“This band is an example of the revolution that is taking place,” Blanchard explains. “The pianist Fabian – born in Cuba, raised in Florida – has his own record label, Biophilia, that’s devoted to making the planet green. Most people are trying to make money but that’s not where his focus lies. The bassist David, from Greensboro, South Carolina, is a very talented church boy. He doesn’t preach or wear it on his sleeve yet he walks tall in his confidence everyday. The guitarist Charles looks like a hard rocker but he’s a brilliant Stanford alumnus who studies anthropology – sits at the piano and plays Chopin after a show. And the drummer Oscar, who grew up playing gospel in church in Chicago, has been with Lionel Richie for 16 years. When you look at the conglomeration of us all from different walks of life, look at how we come together and create something harmonious. We are what the promise of America is supposed to be.”
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These are pathways, originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Brazil (Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazik, Arab, European, Asian...), integrating cultural matrixes worldwide.
Matrix ground zero is the Recôncavo of Bahia...virtually unknown center of gravity circumscribing Bahia's Bay of All Saints...end of voyage for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history...birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. Many countries are happier than Brazil, but none are more joyous.
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced (that's me below left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).