INTERVIEW: Terence Blanchard finds comfort in discovery

Terence Blanchard’s latest project is the Terence Blanchard E-Collective, a group of quality musicians bringing “groove-based music” to audiences around the world. Their first album, Breathless, was released earlier this year, and they are planning several international tour stops in the coming weeks, including a Thanksgiving residency at the Blue Note in New York City.

Blanchard is a composer and trumpeter who defies easy classification. He’s the go-to man for many film scores, especially movies directed by Spike Lee. His musical imprint can be found in Red Tails, Black or White, Miracle at St. Anna, Inside Man and 25th Hour, among many other films dating back to the early 1990s. His recording has been equally varied over the years, spanning from jazz to funk and back again. He’s an expert collaborator, someone who sees the talent in colleagues and brings that excellence to the recording studio.

The E-Collective, featuring Fabian Almazan on keyboards, Charles Altura on guitar, Donald Ramsey on bass and Oscar Seaton on drums, offers a diverse sound on Breathless. The opening track, “Compared to What,” features PJ Morton of Maroon 5 as a guest vocalist and offers listeners a funky groove where dance-inspiring beats couple with a bevy of lyrical action. Other tunes, including the slower-paced title track, allows the instruments to come together and improvise in satisfying jazz riffs.

The idea for the E-Collective dates back several years. Blanchard was working on one of Lee’s films — he thinks it was Inside Man — and Seaton, who was also working on the film’s score, wanted to continue the fun they were having musically.

“He said, right then, ‘We should probably put a band together,'” Blanchard said recently during a phone interview. “But that was such a long time ago. You know, we kept trying, but we just couldn’t get our schedules together. And then finally after, I said, ‘You know what, if I’m not going to do it now, I’m never going to do it.’ So I just made the time and put together the band, and we went out on the road and just started playing, man, and had a lot of fun.”

Fun is an understatement, especially after listening to “Compared to What,” a song that makes it nearly impossible to keep the feet planted in one spot. It’s a polished album that allows for musical adventures. As sometimes these origin stories go, the E-Collective began with a basic idea and only two days of rehearsal.

“After those two days, we went on tour in Europe,” Blanchard said about the early days. “You know, we were like, let’s see what happens. And it wound up really being cool, you know.”

In bringing this group of musicians together, Blanchard was looking for a “certain type of honesty and passion.”

“All of these guys are highly trained musicians, you know, so that was never an issue,” he said. “The issue is just like, do they have the same desire and love for playing music? You know, and that’s the cool thing about this group. I really feel like this group has that. … It’s really hard to put in words, but from the first moment that we started playing, it just felt like family.”

When Blanchard and the E-Collective come to town for a concert, they stick to the 13 tracks on Breathless — everything from a 13-minute “Everglades” to Hank Williams’ “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But Time” — although they have branched off and now offer a tribute to Jimi Hendrix.

Morton, who is a guest vocalist on the album, was someone Blanchard had been wanting to work with for some time. “He’s a great musician, man, great dude, great person,” the trumpeter said about the R&B singer. “I met him years ago, and when I first heard his music, I said, ‘Man, this guy’s got something really special.’ And I just kept him in the back of my mind.”

Breathless covers a lot of topical ground, including the case of Eric Garner, whose death sparked protests around the nation. Blue Note Records, which put out the album, even called it a “statement piece.”

“The initial idea for the album wasn’t that, but it wound up being that just because it just seemed like so much of what was happening in our country has been centered around that,” Blanchard said. “So we couldn’t turn a blind eye to it, and once we realized that, the music started to take on a slightly different shape, and the purpose behind everything kind of changed. And we wanted to, not necessarily create a dialogue because we have been having dialogue for generations. It’s really about trying to change the hearts and minds of some people.”

Blanchard’s career, which is centered around his native New Orleans, has been as varied and influential as they come. Accolades? He has them. Critically-acclaimed albums? Yes. Cultural figure status? That too. For the trumpeter, it has all been one long journey.

“I don’t want to be in one place ever,” he said. “I don’t want to be that comfortable like that. I mean I find comfort in discovery, you know. I find comfort in finding a new challenge, you know. And playing with these guys has been something that is challenging in a different way because the certain type of energy that these guys play with that keeps you on your toes. It’s such a groove-based thing, you know. My approach to improvisation is slightly different, but it’s been like really cool also playing with these guys. Like Charles Altura, I mean that dude plays some crazy stuff, man, every night, and … Fabian is just amazing.”

He added: “I mean it’s funny because, for us, we’re still trying to define and figure out what the sound of this band is. We don’t really know. We’ve just been playing music, and we have a notion that the next album, whenever we do it, is probably going to be very different from the first. I mean that’s just a feeling that we have. We don’t know that because we don’t have any music written, for example. We know how we are as musicians, and things that we all like and where we all are at this time in our life.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Terence Blanchard and his quintet, the E-Collective, will play the Blue Note in New York City, Nov. 26-29. Click here for more information.