What led to the teaming of Beyoncé and jazz trumpet great Terence Blanchard for an operatically inspired Pepsi TV commercial in 2002? That was just two months before the release of her first solo album, “Crazy in Love,” and 19 years before his groundbreaking “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” became the first opera by any Black composer to be produced at New York’s famed Metropolitan Opera.
“No one has ever asked me about that,” said Blanchard, an eight-time Grammy-winner who has earned two Oscar nominations for his scores to films directed by Spike Lee. The Pepsi commercial featured Beyoncé singing new lyrics to the Habanera aria from French composer Georges Bizet’s most famous opera, “Carmen.”
“It was something Spike called me to do,” Blanchard explained, speaking from his family home in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills.
“He was doing this commercial and wanted me to do the (musical) arrangement. It was very interesting to work with Beyoncé, because she’s a consummate pro. She’s amazing and was a joy to work with. And she’s a perfectionist. I remember her saying: “I didn’t sing that one note totally in tune. Can I do another take?” And I was like: ‘Sure!’ “
Blanchard chuckled when asked if another collaboration with Beyoncé might be in the cards.
“Nah!” he said. “I mean, I doubt it. Because, you know, that was a long time ago. I doubt if she even remembers me.”
At this point in his illustrious career, there shouldn’t be many people who are not familiar with this New Orleans native, who will perform “Fire Shut Up In My Bones: Opera Suite in Concert” Sunday at La Jolla Music Society’s Baker-Baum Concert Hall. He will be accompanied by his band the E-Collective, the string quartet Turtle Island, baritone Justin Austin, soprano Adrienne Danrich and visual artist Andrew F. Scott.
A 2024 NEA Jazz Masters honoree, Blanchard is the only artist to win Grammy Awards as an opera composer, jazz composer and jazz soloist. He has written more than 80 film and TV scores, including 20 Spike Lee movies. His scores for two of those films, 2020’s “Da 5 Bloods” and 2018’s “BlacKkKlansman,” placed him alongside Quincy Jones as one of the only two African American composers to twice earn Oscar nominations in the Best Original Score category.
A 2024 inductee into the American Academy of Arts & Letters, Blanchard became the Artistic Director of Jazz at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at the University of Southern California in 2000, the Artistic Director of Jazz for the Henry Mancini Institute at University of Miami in 2011, and in 2020 was named the first Kenny Burrell Chair in Jazz Studies and the Endowed Chair, Global Jazz Studies, both at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music. Last year, he began his tenure as the executive artistic director for the largest non-profit jazz presenter in the world, San Francisco’s SFJazz.
Blanchard spoke at length last week with the San Diego Union-Tribune about his music and a number of other topics, including his love for boxing. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: I’d like to go out on a limb and assume that, over the years, you have done more interviews than you would ever care to recall.
A: (laughing heartily) You would be accurate on that one!
Q: I’d like to open with some questions that I hope you haven’t been asked before. To start with: Several decades from now, you arrive in heaven. You’re taken into a large room where there are three tables, 20 feet apart. At one table is Louis Armstrong, at another table is Giacomo Puccini, and at the third is William Still Grant. Which one of them do you sit down with first, and what’s the first thing you would ask them?
A: I’d sit down with Louis Armstrong first, and the question will be: “What was your inspiration?” Then, I’d sit with William Grant Still and would like to ask what kept him going after being rejected by a (classical music) community that he loved so much. And then I’d ask Puccini about his voicings. I’d like to know what made him choose to double the voices in some spots and not in other spots, and about some of his choices in terms of his orchestrations.
Q: The pianist Gerald Clayton is a lifelong surfer. Ray Brown, the great bassist, was a golf fanatic, and Harold Land and Les McCann were both avid tennis players. When you have free time, is there something one might find you doing?
A: Boxing, for sure. I fell in love with boxing many years ago, and it’s just been a passion of mine.
Q: How often do you get to box?
A: Not as much as I like. I mean, I’m in the gym often, hitting heavy bags. But I haven’t sparred with anybody in a long time.
Q: When you’re boxing, is that a world unto itself? Or while you’re punching a bag, do you ever suddenly you get a musical idea?
A: It’s a little bit of both. The thing that amazes me about it, which is awesome, is that there are six fundamental punches — a jab, lead and rear uppercuts, lead and rear hooks, and the cross. But within that, there are so many variables. It’s just like playing jazz. I mean, we have scales and chords. But there are so many ways to manipulate all those things, and a lot of it has to do with your own creativity, confidence and abilities.
Q: Did you spar a lot?
A: Oh, yeah, I used to spar pretty frequently with my trainer, Michael Bent, who was a former heavyweight champion.
Q: As a trumpeter, did you have any concerns about your lips getting hit?
A: No, because most of the times when I sparred we had an unwritten rule about only hitting below the shoulders. We wouldn’t do any uppercuts, or anything like that.
Q: I don’t know if you’re a fan of the great gospel group, the Blind Boys of Alabama..
A: Oh, yeah, I am.
Q: About 30 years ago, their guitarist, Sam Butler, had just the group and they were auditioning new guitarists. I happened to be interviewing Clarence Fountain, the leader of the Blind Boys, at that exact time. I asked him what the criteria was to be the guitarist in the Blind Boys. And he replied: “Well, you have to play really well. You have to sing really well. You have to listen really well. But the single most important thing is, you have to be able to drive.
A: (laughing) Yeah, that makes sense!
Q: You are performing in San Diego with your band, the E-Collective, which features Charles Altura on guitar, Fabian Almazan on piano and synthesizers, Oscar Seaton on drums and David “DJ” Ginyard on bass. What are the qualities you look for in your bandmates, not only as musicians but as human beings?
A: First of all, they have to be very adept with their craft, which all the guys are. But the most important thing is for them to be open to ideas, and to bring ideas to the band and be creative. I look at the group as being a place where ideas can be birthed, nurtured and hopefully manifest into something better. I’ve always treated my bandmates that way. I find that I grow a great deal by allowing the guys to bring their own personalities to whatever we are doing.
Q: Given how much you do as a composer, a band leader, a performer, writing film scores and operas, and now as executive artistic director of SF Jazz, how do you keep track of your schedule, and what is at the top of your list for 2025?
A: It’s all about staying organized. That’s the key to all of this stuff. And I have great people that I work with who help me in that regard. They keep me in line with everything that’s going on. And I have a lot of stuff going on this year. I’m providing a new opera that I am going to be working with Walter Isaacson on. I can’t talk about it yet, but I’m excited about it. I’m working on some new music for the E-Collective, and I’m excited about that as well. And I have some film projects coming up.
Q: Duke Ellington, as you know, was an incredibly prolific composer. He was asked once what inspired him to compose. He replied: “Give me a deadline.” How important are deadlines for you?
A: Extremely. Because the thing about creating music is you have so many variables. Deadlines help you make these decisions that in turn help you to say: “Okay, I don’t have much time to sit around and just mess around with this. This is what it’s going to be, for now. When I get to another project, I’ll be able to introduce these other ideas.”
Q: Are there any commonalities and things you have learned from writing so many film scores that, directly or indirectly, you could apply to writing your operas Champion and Fire Shut Up In My Bones?
A: Oh, definitely. I mean, it’s all about telling stories. It’s all about pacing yourself, trying to find the most important moments in the story. Yeah, it’s all of those things. Film has helped me a great deal, in terms of understanding that and understanding the structure of it, and how stories can have an apex.
Q: Your fellow opera composer, Anthony Davis, has lived here in San Diego for over 30 years and teaches at the University of California San Diego. He told me his parents introduced him to opera when he was still in grade school, and he had an immediate connection. When, where, and what was your “a-ha!” moment with opera?
A: Man, my father loved opera, and he played opera in the house all the time. Growing up, it wasn’t a thing for me; I wasn’t really feeling it all the way like him. But when I was asked to write my first opera, it’s funny how all of those experiences came back to me, of hearing that music at home. And then it started to click with me, in terms of how I’ve had a strong melodic concept my entire career as a composer. I started to realize: “Well, maybe that came from my experience of being exposed to so much opera as a kid growing up.”
Q: Who was your dad’s favorite opera composer?
A: Puccini.
Q: Were there other composers, or operas, your dad played a lot at home?
A: There were, like “Rigoletto” and “Carmen.” But for me, it was Puccini that made the biggest impact.
Q: As you’re well aware, in 2021 “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” became the first opera by a Black composer to be presented by and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Two years later, they staged Anthony Davis’ “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.” I don’t know if you can quantify this at all, but have you had any interactions with aspiring young composers who may previously have thought that writing an opera and getting it produced was unattainable? And they can now look to you and to Anthony, who in 2020 won the Pulitzer Prize for his opera, “The Central Park Five,” as paving the way for them. Have you experienced that kind of response?
A: Sure. One particular guy is Will Liverman, who was the principal (baritone singer) when “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” premiered at the Met. He told me, after seeing what we were doing, that he had been working on an opera (“The Factotum”) and hadn’t finished it. But after “Fire,” he went back and put the whole production together. They debuted it at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and it got a great response.
Q: Was your goal was to make a great piece of art? And, then, the response and the other stuff is kind of like the cherry on top?
A: That’s basically it. When you talk about going to the Metropolitan Opera House, you think about that tradition it has and that you don’t want to be the weak link in the chain. So, you do whatever it is that you can to make sure that the music is as strong as it can be. And then, along the way, I’m also cognizant of the fact that, if it weren’t for composers like William Still Grant and people like that, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity. So, that weighs heavy on my mind, too. To pay respect to him, we tried to make the project as strong and as powerful as possible. And then you find that people were inspired by what we did, so it becomes a win-win for everybody.
Q: Have you and Anthony Davis ever talked shop?
A: We’ve met before, but we’ve never gotten a chance to sit down and hang out. Because whenever we’ve met, it’s been at like social events.
Q: He lives about six miles from the venue you are performing at here. If he’s in town, maybe the two of you can hang when you’re here.
A: I would love that!
Q: In 1982 you followed your fellow New Orleanians, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and joined Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers. Branford once told me that, quote: “Art taught me to lead without being a leader, to tell people what to do without telling them, and to play very complex rhythms inside a simple meter.” What were the big takeaways for you from working with Art?
A: To always be yourself and to never talk down to your audience. He also said: “If you’re not on the top of your game the first night, you’ll know. The second night, the band will know. And the third night, the audience will know.”
Q: I was lucky enough to interview Art the day before he turned 65. One of the very memorable quotes he gave me was: “The day I retire is the day when they pat me in the face with a shovel.” You obviously love what you do. Is there anything that would make you dial things down?
A: No, not right now. It’s a weird kind of thing. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an athlete — and I’m so glad that that didn’t pan out for me. Because the older I get, the more my brain is feeling comfortable with the ability I have of telling stories musically. I feel like it’s just started. Even though I’m at this stage of my career, I feel like I have so much more to give, because I’m learning so much all the time.
Terence Blanchard’s ‘Fire Shut Up In My Bones: Opera Suite in Concert’
When: 7:00 pm. Sunday
Where: Baker-Baum Concert Hall at Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, 7600 Fay Ave., La Jolla
Tickets: $53-$87
Phone: 858-459-3728
Onlline: theconrad.org