It is 41 years since US trumpeter Terence Blanchard first took to the stage at London’s Ronnie Scott’s. In 1982, Blanchard was a young upstart from New Orleans touring fast-paced bebop and heady swing with elder statesman Art Blakey. In the years since, he has established his own incisive tone on the horn, regularly collaborating with Herbie Hancock, as well as earning two Oscar nominations for his Spike Lee film scores and, in 2021, becoming the first Black composer have an opera at New York’s Metropolitan with Fire Shut Up in My Bones.
Returning to the basement of Ronnie’s tonight, Blanchard harnesses his decades of experience as a sideman and composer to lead an unusual and expansive ensemble, featuring his groove-focused E-Collective group as well as the jazz-classical Turtle Island String Quartet.
Blanchard is dexterous behind his mouthpiece, opening his set with the fractal lines of Wayne Shorter’s The Elders and managing to solo with a beautiful languor amid the tight rhythmic bursts of drummer Oscar Seaton and pianist Taylor Eigsti. Herbie Hancock’s jazz-funk fusion is meanwhile channelled on the driving groove of I Dare You, featuring a scorching solo from guitarist Charles Altura.
It is the accompanying presence of the Turtle Island String Quartet, though, that makes the show. Welding themselves to the melodic lines of numbers Absence and The Elders, they lend a stacked, almost synthesised tone to the journeying compositions, while on closing track Chaos they slip between Blanchard’s freeform squeals and give undulating shape to the tune’s ever-building pace.
Blanchard’s strengths lie in his confident control. Behind the horn, he never blows the paint off the walls – even though that might be welcome at points – but instead sits back and lends balance like a conductor allowing his orchestra to sing. In fact, the highlight of the night doesn’t feature Blanchard at all. It is instead a solo strings performance riffing through everything from Irish fiddle music to bluegrass, swing and sweeping classical grandeur, keeping the audience rapt as genres and tempos switch at will.
Blanchard’s capacity to give others the spotlight ultimately places him in the lineage of jazz greats like his old bandmate Blakey, constantly searching for the next moment of intuitive beauty, no matter where it comes from.
