Word: blanchards
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Halfway through song from his new tribute album, The Billie Holiday Songbook, trumpeter Terence Blanchard abruptly shifts the mood from brokenhearted to defiant. Reflecting the emotions of a jilted lover, he blows swirling, gathering clouds of sound. Then, suddenly piercing them with a barrage of sharp notes, he dashes off a few steeply ascending riffs, bending his notes until they cry and yowl. Throughout the album, on solo after solo (Strange Fruit, In My Solitude), Blanchard's compact, mournful-sounding melodies evoke the desperation and broken dreams that tortured Holiday, who died at 44 in 1959 of drugs and drink...
...match Blanchard's precision and flair in evoking emotion. In the course of two albums on his own, and five others with various collaborators, he has developed an expressive style reminiscent of the mid-1960s Miles Davis. He has also distinguished himself by his sideline as one of Hollywood's busiest composers: three movies with Blanchard scores -- Sugar Hill, Inkwell and Crooklyn -- are now playing in theaters...
Born in New Orleans, Blanchard grew up saturated in music. His father was an insurance man and aspiring opera singer, and his early career paralleled that of Wynton Marsalis, another hometown musician. Blanchard studied composition and classical and jazz trumpet at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, then moved to New York City, where he landed one of jazz's most enviable jobs: trumpeter in the Art Blakey Band...
...Blakey!" the fan exclaimed. "I love your work! The things you did to nurture young jazzmen like Terence Blanchard -- just amazing! But you should really hear what's happened to jazz since you, ah, passed on. There are all these young performers -- such as A Tribe Called Quest, Freestyle Fellowship and now US 3 -- who are combining rap and jazz. You know rap: it's a kind of rhythmic recitation, done to a strong beat...
...transmuted into a saint. At 60 and looking it -- especially when moving as if in a back brace -- Goulet is two decades too old. Patricia Kies gushes out the girl Queen's politically incorrect ignorance and submission while appearing old enough to play Hamlet's mother. As Lancelot, Steve Blanchard sounds like the voice-over from a cartoon and cavorts with an odd hip swivel, as if ready at any moment to start dancing the twist. James Valentine's doubling of Merlyn and Pellinore is a camp extravaganza of twitches, nods, snorts and doddering. The best to be said...