Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Terence Blanchard: A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina)

432

Terence Blanchard: A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina)

By

Sign in to view read count
Terence Blanchard: A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina)
Jazz history isn't exactly littered with great albums featuring string orchestras. There have been a few—tenor saxophonist Stan Getz's Focus (Verve, 1961) and British reed player Tim Garland's If The Sea Replied (Sirocco, 2005) are both masterpieces, but precious few others were recorded in the 44 years which separate them. All too often, string orchestras seem either to cramp an improvising musician's style or deliver a truck load of sound and fury signifying very little, or both.



New Orleans' trumpeter Terence Blanchard's A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina) is one of the genre's infrequent successes. A majestic and emotionally-charged disc, it employs the sonic grandeur of the 40-piece Northwest Sinfonia to convey the magnitude of the devastation Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans in 2005, without at any time compromising the fundamental jazz character of the music. And it does so without bombast or overstatement, its layered and nuanced character avoiding literal evocations of raging wind and water, and suggesting instead measured grief and a quiet determination to rebuild and move on.



The genesis of the disc was director Spike Lee's HBO documentary When The Levees Broke. Lee asked Blanchard, a regular collaborator, to provide music for the film, which also included footage of Blanchard's mother returning for the first time to her ruined home. Lee's budget didn't run to orchestration, but Blanchard was subsequently able to persuade Blue Note to fund a re-recording of the material, with the Northwest Sinfonia featured throughout.



The nucleus of the album consists of four compositions originally recorded for Lee's film. Melodically and structurally, the tunes are the same—each with its root, consciously or otherwise, in George Gershwin's "Ain't Necessarily So"—but the arrangements give each reading a strikingly different feel. The blues-drenched "Levees" evokes the quiet before the storm, an apparent stillness carrying an undertone of incipient menace; "Wading Through" and "The Water" convey the sheer, biblical vastness of the flood; "Funeral Dirge," arranged as a slow march, with metronomic snare drum rolls to the fore, is a salute to the many people who died. Blanchard's no-frills, in-the-tradition, testifying trumpet, which is the main solo voice, rings out powerfully and affectingly throughout. He blows like a blues player sings, by turns angry, plaintive, stoic, hopeful and elegiac—and, almost tangibly, always from the heart.



An ambitious and brilliantly executed album, and perhaps Blanchard's most fully rounded artistic statement to date.

Track Listing

Ghost Of Congo Square; Levees; Wading Through; Ashe; In Time Of Need; Ghost Of Betsy; The Water; Mantra Intro; Mantra; Over There; Ghost Of 1927; Funeral Dirge; Dear Mom.

Personnel

Terence Blanchard: trumpet; Brice Winston: tenor and soprano saxophones; Aaron Parks: piano; Derrick Hodge: acoustic and electric basses; Kendrick Scott: drums, percussion; Zach Harmon: tabla, happy apple; The Northwest Sinfonia, conducted by Terence Blanchard; Simon James: Northwest Sinfonia contractor and concertmaster.

Album information

Title: A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina) | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Blue Note Records

Comments

Tags

Concerts


For the Love of Jazz
Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

What Was Happening
Bobby Wellins Quartet
Laugh Ash
Ches Smith
A New Beat
Ulysses Owens, Jr. and Generation Y

Popular

Eagle's Point
Chris Potter
Light Streams
John Donegan - The Irish Sextet

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.