February 3, 2017
Multiple GRAMMY-winning trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard has composed a sublime jazz score for The Comedian, the new movie starring Robert De Niro and Leslie Mann that was directed by Taylor Hackford and opens nationwide today. The album The Comedian (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is available today digitally, and will be released on CD April 7th. The album can be downloaded, streamed, or pre-ordered on CD HERE.
Blanchard’s score serves as the perfect setting for the story of Jackie Burke (De Niro), a jazz-loving comic icon who collects Art Blakey records and does a spot-on impression of legendary Birdland emcee Pee Wee Marquette. The music features the acclaimed trumpeter fronting a top notch sextet with pianist Kenny Barron, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, alto saxophonist Khari Allen Lee, bassist David Pulphus, and drummer Carl Allen.
The track listing for The Comedian (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is as follows:
1. Jackie In The Rain (feat. Kenny Barron, Carl Allen, David Pulphus)
2. Jackie Gets Out (feat. Kenny Barron, Carl Allen, David Pulphus)
3. Deli To Soup Kitchen (feat. Kenny Barron, Ravi Coltrane, Carl Allen, David Pulphus, Khari Allen Lee)
4. Electricity On MacDougal (feat. Kenny Barron, Ravi Coltrane, Carl Allen, David Pulphus, Khari Allen Lee)
5. Tit For Tat Nocturne (feat. Kenny Barron, Ravi Coltrane, Carl Allen, David Pulphus)
6. Kenny Gets Out (Kenny Barron feat. David Pulphus)
7. Jackie’s Lament (feat. Kenny Barron, Ravi Coltrane, Carl Allen, David Pulphus, Khari Allen Lee)
8. Florida Salsa (feat. Kenny Barron, Ravi Coltrane, Carl Allen, David Pulphus, Khari Allen Lee)
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Terence Blanchard made a name for himself early on as a top-tier jazz trumpeter and has gone on to enjoy a multifaceted career both in jazz and beyond. He has also established himself as one of the most influential jazz musicians and film score masters of his generation. Blanchard has released more than 20 albums and is a four-time GRAMMY Award winner. His previous Blue Note releases include Breathless (2015), Magnetic (2013), A Tale of God’s Will (2007), Flow (2005), and Bounce (2003).
As a film composer, Blanchard has more than 50 scores to his credit. He received a Golden Globe nomination for Spike Lee’s 25th Hour. Other film music written by Blanchard includes Oprah Winfrey’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tim Story’s Barbershop and George Lucas’ Red Tails.
Add to those achievements Blanchard’s recent success composing for Broadway, including the score for playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Motherf**ker With a Hat starring Chris Rock and Bobby Cannavale and the Emily Mann-directed Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire; his first opera commissioned by Opera St. Louis Champion (a poignant tale of welterweight boxing champion Emile Griffith with librettist Michael Cristofer); his first children’s musical, Bud, Not Buddy by Newberry Award winner Christopher Paul Curtis debuted recently at the Kennedy Center; a speaking role as the musical voice of Louis the Alligator in the Disney-animated feature The Princess and the Frog; becoming the artistic director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s jazz series; and after serving as the artistic director of the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz for a decade since 2000, being named in 2015 artist in residence at the Berklee College of Music in Boston where Blanchard works with students in the areas of artistic development, arranging, and composition. He also participates in master classes around the world as well as local community outreach activities in his beloved hometown of New Orleans.
