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Jazz 91.9 WCLK | Membership Matters

Terence Blanchard: Absence

Blue Note

New Orleans-born Trumpeter and Composer Terence Blanchard is truly the Jazz renaissance man of our era. His musical collaboration with Kasi Lemmons, Fire Shut Up In My Bones made him the first Black composer featured in the Metropolitan Opera, which opened it’s most recent season with his work. He has scored films and documentaries, including A Tale of God's Will(A Requiem for Katrina) for Spike Lee's 2006 HBO Katrina Documentary When The Levees Broke. He has multiple Grammy Awards and a pair of Academy Award nominations. He also has a brand new Jazz album out on Blue Note, called Absence. It includes his most recent band the E Collective, as well as the Turtle Island String Quartet.

Absence is Blanchard’s tribute to the musical genius of Saxophonist and Composer Wayne Shorter, who was a critical part of several legendary Miles Davis albums and bands, as well being one of the driving forces of Weather Report. Shorter cuts re-interpreted include Diana, Fall, and the Weather Report song When It Was Now. Sometimes this record sounds like Blanchard was able to take 21st century studio technology and go back and make the E Collective sound like Nefertiti era Miles or early Weather Report gone fully digital. His addition of string quartet and synthesized music elements give the soundscape of Absence a wide range to reward your mind over the course of a first listen or repeated listens.

I'll feature The Elders, off of Absence, tonight on Mainstream and Modern on Jazz 91.9 WCLK. I hope you will join us.

Rob Maynard is WCLK Operations Manager and produces various public affairs programs for WCLK, including The Local Take With Kiplyn Primus, CAU Connects, and Drive Time With Dr. Douglass. He also hosts Mainstream and Modern on Sunday nights 8pm-11pm.