Terence Blanchard's New CD "Choices"

Terence Blanchard's New CD Choices Set For Release August 18th on Concord Jazz

Follow-up To Grammy Winning A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina) Is First Complete CD The World-Renowned Trumpet Player and Film Composer Has Recorded In New Orleans and Features Guests Dr. Cornel West and Bilal.

Life is all about expansion and evolution. We make choices every day, none of which are right or wrong. They are simply choices that allow us to explore the variety of what's before us.
Terence Blanchard

New Orleans, Louisiana. Choices, the new CD from three-time Grammy award winning trumpet player and composer Terence Blanchard, is set to be released August 18th on Concord Jazz. Recorded in March in Blanchard's hometown of New Orleans at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Choices addresses the choices we all make in life both as a society and on a personal level. Blanchard will premiere Choices at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans on July 31st.

Accompanying Blanchard on the album are longstanding band members Fabian Almazan on piano, Derrick Hodge on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums, along with newcomer Walter Smith III on saxophone, all of whom wrote significant track contributions to the CD as well (a complete track listing is attached to this release.) Guest artists include writer, speaker, educator and activist Dr. Cornel West, critically-acclaimed guitarist and Blanchard protege Lionel Loueke, and singer, musician and composer Bilal. West performs spoken word pieces on the album with Bilal providing vocals on several of the tracks.

Blanchard has established himself as one of the most influential jazz musicians and film score masters of his generation, a member of a jazz legacy that has shaped the contours of modern jazz today. With more than 29 albums to his credit, as a musician Blanchard is a multi-Grammy Award winner and nominee, winning earlier this year for his instrumental solo for Be-Bop on Live At The 2007 Monterey Jazz Festival. In addition to receiving the award, Blanchard performed live on the telecast along with other New Orleans artists including Lil Wayne, Allen Toussaint and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who were all joined on-stage by singer Robin Thicke. In 2008, Blanchard also won a Grammy for his CD, A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina), a beautifully haunting and impassioned song cycle about Hurricane Katrina and the ravages incurred upon the City of New Orleans and its residents.

As a film composer, Blanchard has more than 50 scores to his credit and received a Golden Globe nomination for Spike Lee's 25th Hour. In 2008 he completed the score for Lee's Miracle at St. Anna, as well as the soundtrack for Darnell Martins Cadillac Records. Other film music written by Blanchard includes Kasi Lemmons' Eve's Bayou and Talk to Me, Oprah Winfrey's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tim Story's Barbershop and Ron Shelton's Dark Blue. He is currently working on the score for George Lucas Red Tails and has already completed musical contributions for the score on Disney's The Princess and the Frog, set for release this fall.

As Artistic Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, which he was instrumental in relocating from Los Angeles to New Orleans, Blanchard works with students in the areas of artistic development, arranging, composition and concert programming. He also participates in master classes around the world as well as local community outreach activities in his beloved hometown of New Orleans.

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