Flow (2005)

Terence & Blue Note: A Match made in Heaven

Terence Blanchard is an artist that I have always been drawn to. From first hearing him on Music From Mo' Better Blues (1990 Film), then on the score of Sugar Hill (1994) to his other film score likeTerence Blanchard's Original Orchestral Score From The Motion Picture Clockers, he has a wide and varied career. This, his second CD for the famous Blue Note label, is a jazz musical adventure. Produced by the great Herbie Hancock, things kick off with Flow ( Part 1), which is a sparse piece, with a haunting baseline, that has Terence meandering in & out of this song. Haunting. Wadagbe (intro) precedes the same full length tune that has African sounding vocals introducing this, before Terence comes in and takes control.
'Benny's Tune' is an altogether different track, which is softer in tone, with very subtle vocals. Very smoothing, and relaxing. Wandering Wonder is a Blanchard composition, that sounds like work he has done on Romantic Defiance, a busy jazz song, with piano drums, and of course trumpet in effect. Flow (Part 2), continues where part one left off (I like how, like his soundtracks, particularly Inside Man (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) he has a familiar song that reappears throughout the CD.
Other highlights include' The Source' 'Over There, ( which sounds like it should be in When the Levees Broke. Melancholy. Flow part 3. and my favorite cut, Harvesting Dance. This isn't my favorite Terence CD, that honor goes to The Heart Speaks, but this is a varied Blanchard release.
July 26, 2007

Great Trumpeter

Anyone who is a fan of Terence will love this cd. It such a great cd which some songs are in high tempo and some just straight smooth. June 24, 2007

NOMINATED FOR 2007 GRAMMY, BEST LONGFORM MUSIC VIDEO

This is Terence's own film about the creative process. It is not a concert film, but a powerful examination of a life in music.

"Everyone experiences flow from time to time and will recognize its characteristics: People typically feel strong, alert, in effortless control, unselfconscious, and at the peak of their abilities. Both sense of time and emotional problems seem to disappear, and there is an exhilarating feeling of transcendence. All of these optimal experiences add up to mastery, or better yet, a sense of participation in life, thus the meaning of life."
-- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
New York: Harper & Row, 1990

For a musician like Terence Blanchard, flow is about finding the moment when the struggle finally seems worthwhile, when all the years of study and work make sense. At the start of filming, Terence happily speculated that he may have finally assembled the perfect creative unit, a band that grows individually, and simultaneously as a group: "With this band, I just feel born-again! [laughs] It's given me new life, piqued my curiosity, made me work hard again to really try to redefine myself, to develop and just be an artist. At the same time, I'm really having so much fun..."
In the course of Flow's visual collage of narrative, travelogue, and tunes -- filmed on four continents -- Blanchard, chillmaster of the urban film score (Mo' Better Blues, Malcolm X, Barbershop, She Hate Me, The 25th Hour) and his young, incredibly innovative band nightly pushed the edges, inventing new music that touched the souls of audiences from Paris to New Orleans, at a huge venue in Tokyo and an intimate club in Osaka, and from the street scene of South Africa to the swimming-pool-studded canyons of Hollywood. But the exotic settings serve to frame the human background of the very real daily lives of six musicians, constantly on the move physically and creatively.
The film aims at not only showcasing Blanchard's prodigious instrumental and composing skills, but at revealing him as both a shrewd judge of young talent and... an old-world Master Artist of dimension and magnitude as well. He works intimately developing his band's individual potentials on the road, but takes one week each month to return to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz to teach even younger musicians. Terence is committed to teaching, and the process of a life education in music is at the heart of Flow.
And then, allowing the public to see the other half of his musical life for the very first time, he leads audiences into the famed ToddAO recording studio in Los Angeles, offering the opportunity to watch over his shoulder as he creates the soundtrack for Spike Lee's Inside Man (Universal Pictures/Imagine Entertainment), starring Denzel Washington, for early 2006 release.
Every aspect of the joy, and the pain, of their art is on display as Terence and band travel the world riding the effortless, unselfconscious flow of musicians performing at the peak of their abilities. "The overriding goal in what we do," says Blanchard, "is to stop being musicians, and start being the music."
Tour films may be a cliché, but Flow quickly became an unique document of a newly-dawning era of artistic commitment in contemporary music. The camera unobtrusively recorded the personal evolution of the musicians as they individually dealt with both the rigors and the excitement of the road, and then each night climbed on stage for an even larger musical adventure.
Dozens of musicians, dozens of locales, dozens of tunes, and joy, spread out over ninety minutes: it's all a part of going with the Flow.
February 6, 2007

good but............

I have buy this dvd because Im a Terence fan , I have several records of him , and I expected to see his band in a concert or tour playing something of his last record(flow), but NO ONE SONG IS COMPLETED, all are interrupted . Good or not I dont like it December 8, 2006

Wonderful and unique sound

As the title says, this CD is an excellent show of pure musical talent. This collection of songs is so full of emotional experiences that it's hard to realize that you're not actually at a live performance. I've seen the Terrance Blanchard Sextet live before, and this CD is just as active as their performance. Wonderful. March 8, 2006

More reviews at Amazon.com ...