Terence Blanchard
b. 13 March 1962, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. One of several brilliant young musicians emerging from New Orleans in the '80s, Blanchard began playing trumpet at 14 while studying at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts under Ellis Marsalis, father of Blanchard's contemporaries and fellow New Orleanians, Branford and Wynton Marsalis. A year later, Blanchard was studying composition and in 1980 went to Rutgers University. That same year he joined Lionel Hampton with whom he played for two years before replacing Wynton Marsalis in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. At the same time, Donald Harrison, a fellow student from his days in New Orleans, replaced Branford in the Messengers. Blanchard stayed with Blakey until 1986 when he formed his own band with Harrison. A technically-gifted musician, Blanchard's playing displays a marked awareness of the lyricism of some of the early bop trumpeters, like Clifford Brown. Although much less well known than Marsalis, Blanchard's work displays a similar restraint but stronger jazz feeling.