The Lincoln to Host Grammy-Winning Jazz Artist Terence Blanchard Featuring The E-Collective June 29
Posted: May 21, 2018
2018 USA Fellow and five-time Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard is an artistic force making powerful musical statements on painful American tragedies past and present. In his new album, Live, Blanchard and his current quintet, The E-Collective, address the epidemic of gun violence with seven powerful songs that reflect the bitter frustration of the conscious masses and provide emotional healing. With a title that carries a pointed double meaning, the album is an impassioned continuation of the band’s 2015 Grammy-nominated studio recording, Breathless.
CAPA presents Terence Blanchard featuring The E-Collective at the Lincoln Theatre (769 E. Long St.) on Friday, June 29, at 8 pm. Tickets are $26.50 and $36.50 at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000.
From his expansive work composing the scores for Spike Lee films ranging from the documentary 4 Little Girls to the epic Malcolm X, as well as his own discography of recordings such as A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), Terence Blanchard has been a consistent artistic force for making powerful musical statements. His new album, Live (April 2018), was symbolically culled from concerts performed at venues in three communities that have experience escalating conflicts between law enforcement and African-American citizens. The project condemns all manner of gun violence whether against profiled citizens of color or targeted members of law enforcement.
Discussing the origin of The E-Collective, Blanchard states, “I didn’t put this group together to be a protest band. We started out wanting to play music to inspire young people that didn’t want to play jazz to play instrumental music on its highest level. In this computer age, we saw too many kids playing music, but not trying to learn theory or master their craft. However, while we were on tour in Europe, Mike Brown got shot. Trayvon Martin had already been murdered. And back then it seemed like these shootings were happening every month. That’s when I felt we had to stand up and make a statement with our 2015 album, Breathless. After touring that music for two years, we couldn’t just let it go.”
Experimental, electric, and exotic, The E-Collective consists of Terence Blanchard on trumpet, Charles Altura on guitar, Fabian Almazan on piano and synthesizers, Oscar Seaton on drums, and new addition David “DJ” Ginyard on bass.
Blanchard began playing piano at age 5, and later trumpet in summer camps alongside 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 in 1991, leading to a string of acclaimed, often conceptual works and more than 40 movie scores, primarily feature films and documentaries for director Spike Lee, including HBO’s When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.
