this story about “The King Woman” composer Terence Blanchard first appeared in TheWrap awards magazine’s “The Race Begins” issue.
Terence Blanchard’s resume is full of great achievements: the New Orleans jazz trumpeter is the first black composer to have an opera performed at the Metropolitan Opera and the only one, other than Quincy Jones, to be nominated for two Oscars for music. for movies; His nominations came for “BlacKkKlansman” and “Da 5 Bloods,” just a couple of more than two dozen projects he’s done with Spike Lee.
But back in 2000, Blanchard wrote the music for a small film, “Love & Basketball,” for an aspiring director making her feature film debut. And that little film paid off, because the director, Gina Prince-Bythewood, enlisted Blanchard to write the score for “The Woman King,” her new epic set in the 19th-century West African nation of Dahomey.
The film is a heroic tale that places black women in places of power, and Blanchard’s score uses the vocal and percussion rhythms of Africa to span an ocean and 200 years.
“When I saw the movie, I said to Gina, ‘As an African American, I know people have been waiting to see a movie about this part of the world with such majesty and elegance,’” Blanchard said. “I was glad he let me watch it alone, because I was a jerk when it ended.”
The film also linked Blanchard to his own story. “It brought my grandmother back to me, in a way,” she said. “All the different cultures and ethnic groups talk about the strong-willed women in those cultures, and growing up in the African-American culture of New Orleans, I was able to see a direct link to the Agoje (warrior women in “The Woman King”). I wanted to create something that was powerful but universal, and I kept thinking about how in African-American culture, the church is a huge thing and music is a powerful thing. Well if you listen [South African choral group] Ladysmith Black Mambazo, although the harmonic progressions are different, there seems to be a connection to spiritually based African-American music.”
He was also inspired by African rhythms and later brought in American jazz singer Dianne Reeves to improvise wordless vocals over his music. “From the first note, we knew we had made the right decision,” she said. “She separated everyone in the control room. This is one of those projects that was healing for a lot of people.”
It was also an exploration for Blanchard. “I try not to go in with any preconceived notions,” he said. “I literally just watch the scenes and let them speak to me. That has always been the way I have operated. I made this album years ago and I asked Dr. Cornel West to talk about it, and he said something that was really profound. He said: “Jazz musicians always come out of nowhere expecting something.” That’s how I felt about this.”
And speaking of jazz musicians, Blanchard also wrote music in 2022 for “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues,” a documentary about another New Orleans jazz trumpeter. “That was an honor, man,” he said. “When they called me to do it, I got really excited and then I got nervous. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, this is Louis Armstrong.’ But what I realized was, don’t play with it. Let his music speak for itself.”
He also turned off the sound of the rocking chair where Armstrong sat when he recorded audiotapes about his life heard in the Sacha Jenkins film. “I took some of the harmony from that old rocking chair and based my theme on that sound,” he said. “There was something about the sound of the old rocking chair that struck my heart and soul, and I wanted it to be the emotional backdrop for the film.”
Read more of the Race Begins issue here.
