Terence Blanchard trumpet
Charles Altura guitar
Fabian Almazan piano
Donald Ramsey bass
Oscar Seaton drums
A world renowned trumpeter/composer/band leader and Blue Note recording artist, Terence Blanchard is the most prolific jazz musician to ever compose for motion pictures. Blanchard was born and raised in New Orleans where he studied with the Marsalis brothers at the famed New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. In 1980, he won a scholarship to Rutgers University and immediately began performing in the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. Two years later, he succeeded Wynton Marsalis in the legendary Jazz Messengers before forming his own influential groups. Blanchard originally began performing on Spike Lee’s soundtracks, including “Mo Better Blues” in which he ghosted the trumpet for Denzel Washington.
Terence Blanchard’s E-Collective will explore various music areas, centered on jazz, but also including various elements of blues, R&B, funk and jazz fusion.
They will take the unusual and innovative approach of abandoning the traditional “soloist/accompaniment” demarcation of straight-ahead jazz and instead feature opportunities for continuous improvisation by every member of the band. The individual solos are more prominent, but will never overwhelm the music’s collective approach. Initially, the band’s music will feature a free, extended improvisational method (similar to Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew-period work), but will move towards more groove-oriented and pre-structured music.
The new band will feature a tight rhythm and blues-oriented rhythm section composed of Donald Ramsey (bass) and Oscar Seaton (drums), and the music will have a relaxed, funky groove with Charles Altura (guitar) and Fabian Almazan (keyboard, piano, synths) that will give the band an appeal to a far wider audience. Perhaps a defining moment of Terence Blanchard’s career, the E-Collective will make jazz listeners out of rhythm and blues fans, and vice versa.