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Rating: The name Terence Blanchard may not say much to many, but for cinephiles, a light bulb will immediately go off: yes, it's him, the musical alter ego of the great Spike Lee, creator of many excellent soundtracks from "Malcom X" to "25th Hour". He is also a high-ranking jazz musician, a skilled trumpeter, who at the beginning of his career played with stars of the caliber of Lionel Hampton and Art Blakey. In 1989, he began his fruitful collaboration with the New York director, first participating in soundtracks for "Do the Right Thing" and "Mo' Better Blues", then composing original music for the cinema for the first time with "Jungle Fever". The duo rejoined for a tremendous occasion, the documentary "When The Levees Broke" by Spike Lee, wherein, with his dry, harsh, and direct style, he narrates the devastating consequences on New Orleans of Hurricane Katrina and what enormous tragedies can occur when adverse fate is joined by human ineptitude, imbecility, and bad faith.
"A Tale of God's Will (a requiem for Katrina)" is the music of the documentary film and, as happens only with the best soundtracks, shines with its own light, evokes emotion and moves even without the dramatic sequences rolling. Blanchard's jazz quintet, featuring Aaron Parks on piano, Brice Winston on saxophone, Derrick Hodge on bass, and Kendrick Scott on drums, manages to convey restlessness turning into terror, concern morphing into panic, disbelief and a sense of abandonment shifting to anger and despair. To the successful depiction of the different moments of the drama, an essential contribution is provided by Blanchard’s choice to add the support of an orchestra, The Northwest Sinfonia, conducted by him.
"A Tale of God's Will (a requiem for Katrina)" is composed of 13 tracks, each of which serves to describe a phase of the tragedy narrated by the documentary, but the main structure of the work consists of four of them, "Levees" - "Wading Through" - "The Water" - "Funeral Dirge", which share the same melody, but are arranged differently to describe the main acts of the drama. The introduction and the finale of "Levees" are entrusted to a string orchestra, but the protagonist is Terence's Gershwinian trumpet: the leaves detach, drawing funeral omens, the wind intensity increases and the water level rises rapidly; the strings give way to the trumpet which seems to mourn, vainly asking for help, like many New Orleans residents from rooftops and terraces of houses, which become the only, insecure refuges.
In "Wading Through", it’s Parks' piano that almost lets you touch the growing tension, imagines the desperate escape, a suit of great pathos, enriched by the orchestral arrangement that makes the tones even more desperate. "The Water" is the result of images CNN showed 24/7 of his city; Terence was away for work during Katrina, the distressing impression of that incredible amount of water besieging New Orleans, that water turning once more from a caring mother into a terrible stepmother; the crescendo of the strings measures the element that takes possession of every street and the trumpet tries to give voice to the affliction, to the increasingly faint forces, to the resistance that gives way to resignation. "Funeral Dirge" is the most intense piece, a tribute to the victims of the disaster, a way to ideally give them, especially the many missing, a worthy burial; a funeral march that grows, like the tone of the trumpet, which tries to give voice to everyone, collectively, in a breath that has something epic.
To these four pieces, the "ghosts" are added: that of Betsy, another devastating hurricane that struck in '57 and which the musician rescues from his traumatic childhood memories along with the hard-bop sounds of that time; there's also the "ghost" of '27, another warning coming from the not-too-distant past, another hurricane, musically a brief but intense improvisation of almost free flavor; finally there's that of Congo Square, which opens the album, with Afro rhythms, syncopated cadences, and choirs typical of the city’s street bands, and Terence’s trumpet solos consolidating the cultural and musical memory of his city, almost fearing that it too might be swept away.
The other members of Blanchard’s band also give a fundamental compositional contribution: Parks in "Ashé", a melody intertwined by piano and trumpet, that accompanies the return of the sun and the revival of life and hopes. Winston with his saxophone in "In Time of Need" filters his anger and frustration, reaching elegiac tones. Scott, the drummer, raises to heaven his "Mantra", which invigorates, refreshes. Hodge gives his best in "Over There", a melancholic melody that makes one think of the life that resumes, the ability to see "beyond" the desolation and the landscape of death. "Dear Mom" is one of the most moving tracks, which Terence dedicates to his mother who also lost her home due to the floods; a small miracle of balance and expressive capacity.
Terence Blanchard, with this intense and passionate soundtrack, confirms himself as one of the most interesting and talented musicians and composers, not only in jazz, on the current scene and an excellent instrumentalist, to be placed in terms of skill and sensitivity alongside the best of the current scene.
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